
pinions 



Philosophies 



Farmer John 



Quaint Sayings Said in a Quaint Way 

■ / 








Opinions and Philosophies 


...OF... 

v 

Farmer John 


By JOHN C. ELLIS 


“No use eatin’ green apples, when you know they 
will give you the cramps, so just apply this to the 
common things of life.” 


COPYRIGHTED 1924 

BY JOHN C. ELLIS. 


PRICE - 75 CENTS 

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This Book is Respectfully Inscribed to 


REV. MYRON E. GENTER, 
Pastor First Methodist Church 

and 

REV. J. ROMEYN DANFORTH, 
Pastor First Church in Christ 
Both of New London, Conn. 

In appreciation of the encouragement 
and assistance given me in the perform¬ 
ance of my public and private duties. 


By the Author 
JOHN C. ELLIS 

Late Director Americanization, New London, Conn. 


Printed in the United States cf America 
Argus Printing Co., Inc., Camden, N. J. 


o FEB~ 4 '24 

©C1A 775715 




INTRODUCTION 


You folks that read this book can see that I ain’t used to writin’, 
fer if I wuz I d use better grammer and spellin’, and I ain’t an aristocrat, 
fer all I can do is to talk to the ordinary folks that ain’t lookin’ fer mis' 
takes but want to git along in life the best way and do right at the same 
time. So when I see the folks of today passin’ by the things that mean 
so much to them, not even thinkin’ about them, I thought it wuz time 
fer me to tell them somethin’ about life, bein’ as my hair is frosted with 
age and I’ve been through the mill and got more kicks than a stray dog 
with a can tied to its tail. Its mighty funny how many folks want to 
give an animal a “lift” with his foot when the poor dog is down and 
ain't got any friends. 

Then agin, we got too many young folks that are shy on education, 
•even if they did go to school and college. Until these schools and colleges 
put in a course of “good common horse sense” and make the pupils pass 
the examination before they git their diplomas, instead of turnin’ them 
loose, with the idee that this livin’ business is one great big joke, and 
they're so all fired smart that us “old fogies” don’t know nothin’ ex¬ 
cept to put up the money fer them to blow in, then “we’re gittin’ some¬ 
where.” 

So if my “funny idees” will only knock some of this “horse sense” 
into one person, and smooth out the road of life so they won’t git so 
many jolts and bumps, then the “rube” that wrote this book has done 
some good anyway, even if these educated critics does give me the 
“merry quack,” like an old duck I once owned, which shot out into the 
middle of my duck pond when I wanted to chase it into the coop. 

Yours truly, 

FARMER JOHN. 




This book is good enough to be good for something. It helps us 
to know Farmer John and his homespun faith. 

A few years ago a French painter gave the world a picture called, 
“The Man With a Hoe.” Then a California poet put it into words. 

Now Farmer John has given us the faith with a hoe. It is not faith 
with pink wings flying away into the sunset clouds. This is the faith 
which walks right on the ground with us. It hoes the fields of life’s 
work with us, whatever that work may be. 

We need it; every man and woman of us. So here is a warm clasj 
for the good hard hand of Farmer John, and a “God bless you!” for 
his big, warm, tender heart. 

J. ROMEYN DANFORTH, 

Pastor First Church of Christ, New London, Conn. 


It becomes increasingly evident that a large portion of the reading 
public in this country is giving attention to axioms, bits of philosophy, 
and the short stories, which are loosely phrased in diaiect form, rather 
than confine itself entirely to excellent diction with superb rhetorical 
construction. 

In connection with this demand, it seems quite opportune that Farmer 
John should make his appearance in book form after attracting consid¬ 
erable attention in newspaper articles. 

We have the conviction that many people who are not well acquainted 
with the classics, and some who are, may be inclined to read this unpre¬ 
tentious volume and find therein a sharp phrase, a piercing word, a bit 
of fun or an old principle in new clothes, which may enrich the character 
or perchance be a means of saving the career from disaster. 

The writer of this foreword therefore most heartily commends this 
effort of Farmer John, as he brings out of a vast experience, some good 
counsels to help improve the race of men. 

MYRON E. GENTER, 

Minister of First Methodist Episcopal Church, 
New London, Conn. 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


5 


“ME,” AND WHAT WE CAN 

SEE IN A LOOKING GLASS 


Folks Pay as Much Attention to it as to the Jack Rabbits 

of Australia 


“Say, what is the most important 
thing in the world to you?” asked 
Farmer John one day, when he was 
making a friendly call at my office, 
after we had exchanged greetings. He 
was a regular visitor and I valued his 
companionship most highly, enjoying 
his bluff and hearty friendship and 
his common sense ideas and opinions 
which he expressed in a most original 
manner. 

The question came so suddenly that 
I could not reply, for many things 
flashed through my mind; so like the 
Yankee I answered his question by 
asking another. “Well, what is it?’’ 

“Why it is you,” he replied. 

“You,” I exclaimed. 

“What word do you use when you 
speak of yourself?” he asked. 

“Why, me of course.” 

“That’s right, and you answered the 
question. The most important thing 
in the world to us individually is ‘ME.’ 
We may wish for wealth and power, 
but all our desires and hopes depend 
on us separately, ME! So that is the 
most important thing to every livin’ 
bein’; for if ‘ME’ doesn’t exist, how 
can we get what we want?” 

* * * 

That question was unanswerable, 
but as “ME” did exist, I asked him on 
what grounds he based his statement. 

“Well, suppose you should fall down 
an’ break your leg. Of course I would 
be sorry to hear it, but I would be 
an, awful lot sorrier if it wuz me. Or 
if I was left a lot of money that would 
be more important to me than you for 
I owned it an’ you didn’t. Conse¬ 
quently we are more important to our¬ 
selves than to any other person alive. 
Now just think of the thousand of fel¬ 


lers that lost their legs, arms an’ eyes 
in the big war. We can say all we 
please about bein’ sorry an’ that’s all. 
Our bein’ sorry don’t bring back their 
legs, arms or eyes. Our bein’ sorry 
don’t help ’em, so the loss of these 
things are more important to them 
than to us; for they got to figure out 
how to make a livin’ an’ we don’t. 
Now if this is true we are neglectin’ 
many things that should be looked 
after. We hire engineers, architects 
an’ caretakers to look after our big 
buildin’s an’ if anything goes wrong, 
they are after it mighty quick.’’ 

* * * 

I admitted that every thing should 
have somebody to look after it, or it 
would go to ruin. 

“That’s right,” answered the Farm¬ 
er, “an’ if we don’t look after the 
most important thing in the world, it 
will go to ruin too. We’re trustin’ to 
pot luck to git by, for we’re gropin’ 
around with our eyes shut, not noticin’ 
the warnin’s that are hung out on 
every side. An’ the average feller 
thinks that the one who tells him he’s 
goin’ wrong, is a ‘nut’ an’ don’t know 
what he is talkin’ about. Why we’re 
payin’ about as much attention to the 
most important thing in the world, as 
we are to the jack rabbits of Austra¬ 
lia; ignorin’ the Bible, which tells us 
how to dodge an’ destroy the enemies 
that are pullin’ us down, an’ plug up 
the holes that’s breakin’ down the 

foundation of livin’. 

* * * 

“Look at the caretakers of buildin’s 
They’re a snopin’ around, lookin’ for 
the weak spots of the buildin’s, an’ 
get busy at once. But in spite of 
the warnin’s we get about our own 




6 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


buildin’ an’ how bad it’s gettin’; 
bein’ over run with the rats of pleas¬ 
ure an’ selfishness, gettin’ full of rat 
holes that makes the foundation of 
the most important thing in the world 

to us look like a sieve.” 

* * * 

“But caretakers of buildings are 
paid to look after them,” I asserted. 

“An’ it will pay us to look after 
ourselves an’ pay us big,” said Farmer 
John. “Don’t the Bible tell us that 
God created man in his own image. 
Some folks think we look like God 
in the flesh. W|hy if I thought God 
looked like any one of us, I’d be so 
disgusted I could never pray again. 
Look at our faces, with all kinds of 
noses—flat, thin, hooked, humped, 
bulged, long, short, pugged, pointed—- 
all kinds of eyes—cross-eyed, squinty, 
beady, crooked, watery, flinty, and all 
kinds of colors. Gaze at our bodies; 
we’re shaped from an’ animated string 
to a walkin’ hogshead, supported on 
legs; some bend in, others out, some 
like a hoop, short, long, lean an’ fat. 
Now get this collection together an’ 
tell me what God looks like, if we 
wuz created like Him in the flesh. 
But we can thank the Good Lord we 
guessed wrong, for the man He cre¬ 
ated is inside of us, for we can’t see 
that man any mor’n we can see God, 
for we wuz created in His image. 

* * * 

“Haven’t we got libraries where we 
can study the lives of great and good 
men to pattern by?” I asked. 

“We certainly have, with millions 
of books in ’em an’ thousands of men 
written up, but the Good Lord never 
yet made two men alike an’ we can 
pick all kinds of patterns. But it ain’t 
safe to pick out a pattern of any livin’ 
man until he’s dead, for he might fly 
off the track an’ no pattern will fit us 
without alterin’. I can take the pat¬ 
tern of George Washington; it won’t 
fit me without alterin’, for I’ll never 
be President of the United States nor 
a General. I’ve read about George; 
he never told a lie an’ he prayed to 
God to help him in time of trouble. 
I can cut this out of George’s pattern 
an’ fit it on me. I can take the pat¬ 


tern of Benjamin Franklin; cut out 
his thrift, philosophisin’ an’ studying,. . 
an’ fit that on me. But I can’t take 
his pattern as Ambassador to France 
an’ England. It won’t fit me. But by 
combinin’ George an’ Benjamin’s pat¬ 
terns, I got a good start to make one 
to fit.” 

* * * 

“Well, how would you start to study 
yourself?” I asked curiously. 

"Hrn, git a lookin’ glass, put it right 
in front of your face. You don’t have 
to git the best kind; git the worst, 
then you’d be lettin’ yourself down 
easy, for then you could blame some 
of the defects on the glass. Look into 
the eyes right in front of you an’ ask 
questions. Ask ’em loud so there will 
not be any mistake. Now see whether 
you are man enough to tell the truth. 
It will be a hard job if you attempt to 
evade or lie, for the man inside of 
you, the man God created, will regis¬ 
ter a kick, stiffer than any made by a 
mule that’s been whaled with a bunch 
of thorns. An’ if you continue to da 
it, you will show up as a first class 
scoundrel an’ you’ll kill the man in¬ 
side of you. You can’t change him, 
for if he ain’t all ready dead he’ll 
be heard from an’ I’ll warn you that 
before you git through, you’ll think 
you’re about the cheesiest piece of 
humanity that ever came down the 
pike of life. Did you ever try it?” 
asked Farmer John. 

I admitted I never had, but thought 
I would try it sometime. 

“I’ll tell you right now, when you 
do, you’re goin’ to lose all respect for 
yourself. That’s if you are honest an’ 
the man in you ain’t dead. You’ll grow 
so small, you can crawl through a hole 
made by a knittin’ needle an’ won’t 
touch the sides. It’s a wonder how 
we kept out of jail or wasn’t lynched 

for some of the tricks we done.” 

* * * 

“What are some of the questions 
that should be asked?” I suggested. 

“Look in the glass hard an’ straight 
at the eyes in front of you. Ask, 
‘What right have I got to be proud or 
jolly myself; I’m good lookin.’ Then 
the man inside might say: ‘You didn’t 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


7 


make yourself, pick out your face, 
your nose, your eyes or the color of 
your skin, cut in your mouth, an’ put 
that high forehead on you just like a 
cow; folks thinkin’ you’re clever be¬ 
cause you got it. You didn’t put the 
hair on your head, nor the whiskers 
on your face. What did you ever do 
to hike yourself on a platform for 
folks to admire you?’ Why man alive, 
you’ll think of so many excuses, you 
can’t begin to count them, you will 
be like the peacock that spreads out 
its tail, then it sees its feet. That tail 
gets suddenly rolled up in a wad an’ 
those big, flat, black lookin’ feet, the 
cause of it all, waddles Mr. Peacock 
back in some corner ashamed of it¬ 
self. . 

* * * 

“Look in the glass again, then ask, 
‘What kind of bluff are you puttin’ 
up for a living? Knowledge?’ Why 
there’s lots of insects, animals an’ 
birds has showed more sense an’ 
brains than we have. They don’t go 
to school; they have no books nor 
Bible to tell them how to live, which 
tells us to study them. An’ like a set 
of boobs, braggin’ how much we know, 
we are always readin’ somethin’ an’ 
start to argue most of the time. We’re 
only fakin’ a stab at it. We’re like a 
bunch of savages, thinkin’ they can 
put out the moon by shootin’ arrows 
at it, tryin’ to put it out of business 
an’ they howl an’ dance, thinkin’ they 
done somethin’ big, but they can’t 
reach it. What does the man inside 
say? Listen: Oh, what a bluff we are, 
four flushin’, sailin’ under false pre¬ 
tenses; we don’t know enough to pro¬ 
tect our health; we’re lettin’ the rats 
of bad habits undermine it. I’ll bet 
the average man hasn’t got nerve 
enough to call the man inside a liar, 
for it is true, and we are not yet so 
bad that we are goin’ to choke the 
life out of him, insistin’ he is a liar. 

* * * 

“Look in the glass again. Ask: 
‘Are you honest; are you stealin’ from 
anybody?’ A feller can be perfectly 
straight about money, but he can be 
crookeder than a dog’s hind leg, in 
everything else. Are you that kind? 


Answer that question an’ see what you 
think of yourself. Have you robbed a 
feller of his reputation by talkin’ 
about him? Have you played the dou¬ 
ble game, an’ by your talk led folks 
wrong, so you could take advantage 
of them? No use makin’ the excuse, 
the ‘other. feller done you first,’ an’ 
you’re gettin’ square with him. 

“Our chief engineer, our good Lord, 
don’t teach you that an’ you can’t 
square yourself by the Bible, so don’t 
squeeze the man inside if he kicks; 
you can’t change him. 

* * * 

“Look again in the glass an’ in¬ 
quire : ‘How many times you have 
plotted agin some other feller, tryin’ 
to push him down because you wuz 
jealous of him an’ he worked harder 
an’ better than you? Have you went 
to secret meetin’s to arrange to pull 
off some bad stunts that wouldn’t 
stand the light of day in spite of the 
protests of the man inside; an’ if he 
objects too much, you throttle him. 
Think this over. Ask all about this 
an’ before you get through you will 
admit you have been a peach an’ 
specked one at that. 

* * * 

“Look again, stare hard an’ inquire: 
‘Do you want your friends an’ family 
to know everything you done when 
you wuz away from home, where you 
were not known or where you come 
from, an’ you thought you could break 
from the straight an’ narrow path; 
where you had good solid walkin’, 
but persisted in plowin’ through slush, 
mud an’ muck, thinkin’ you wuz hav¬ 
ing a good time?’ Ah, after you got 
good an’ well soaked with the slime 
of the underworld, you strolled back 
home, appearin’ to be innocent; put¬ 
tin’ up a bluff of honesty that would 
stand about as much rubbin’ as a 
piece of wet tissue paper. You never 
thought of the laws you violated, the 
tears shed an’ the heart’s sufferin’, 
caused by this same good time you 
thought you were havin’. Now don’t 
you feel like crawlin’ in the small 
hole mentioned an’ pull it in after 
you? I’m sure the man inside feels 


8 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


like belting you with a club. An’ we 

deserve it, don’t we? 

* * * 

“Look again in the glass. Look 
hard an’ you’ll see the man inside, 
lookin’ at you. You can’t fool him, 
for he knows. God Almighty made 
him. You are tryin’ your best to make 
him a man like yourself an’ it can’t 
be done; you can kill him first. Ask 
him how you stand with God Al¬ 
mighty, an’ he will tell you. If you 
don’t change, we’ll have about as 
much of a show as we have in puttin’ 
the north star out of commission with 
a pea shooter. So in spite of all the 
warnin’s we got, what good has it 
done. Can’t we understand that ME 
is the biggest thing in this world to us 
individually; has been befouled an’ 
neglected, not being taken care of as 
much as our little pet poodle or the 
family cat. We take pot luck an’ let 
’er rip an’ we’re losin’ out. It’s a 
mighty poor dog that ain’t got some 
friends an’ we must be homeless pups 
indeed, if there ain’t some one around 
a watchin’ an’ notin’ what we are a 
doin’, thinkin’ how smart we are, imi¬ 
tatin’ us an’ as a rule the imitation is 
generally worse than the original, so 
we know what kind of product they 


will turn out to be when we consider 
the original. 

* * * 

“Look in the glass once more an’ 
then remember the man in you wuz 
created by God Almighty an’ left in 
your keepin’ an’ after we are through 
with him has got to pass inspection, 
an’ from appearances, after we get 
through with him, he’ll look as much 
like the original as an angel does a 
tadpole. Look hard, find the man in¬ 
side, see if there is any life left in 
him. Let’s bring him back to life. 
Give him a dose of love to God an’ 
our fellow man an’ he’ll soon revive. 
Keep him alive by doin’ our duty; 
break down the idols of pride, power 
an’ gold; tear down the man-made 
man inside an’ set up the God-made 
man on its pedestal, takin’ for our pat¬ 
tern not any of the world’s great men, 
but that of the one who died that we 
might live throughout eternity. He is 
our engineer. Alter our patterns to 
that of His. By so doin’ we can avoid 
all dangers an’ troubles that beset the 
most important thing in the world to 
us, which is ME. Study work an’ ac¬ 
quire knowledge an’ it will stand out 
as a beacon an’ a guide to those who 
follow us in the pathway of life.” 


to. 


PARMER JOHN'S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 9 


OPPORTUNITIES 


They Are Stickin’ Out Everywhere Waitin , for Some One 

to Lasoo Them 


“I met a feller the other day named 
Jim Brown. Now he wuz one of those 
boys that wuz always complainin’. He 
never held a job very long, so this 
day he collared me an’ told me his 
troubles. He never had any luck, the 
bosses wuz always agin him an’ gave 
him the hardest work, while other 
fellers not half as smart as him got 
the easy jobs. He never had any op¬ 
portunities an’ had no one to push him 
to the front. 

“When I first heard this story I 
kinder felt sorry fer him, but when I 
thunk the matter over I wuzn’t as 
sorry as I thought I wuz, so I asked 
him, ‘If he wuz a freight car.’ This 
made him mad an’ wanted to know 
why, an’ I told him that all he wanted 
wuz some one to push him an’ that’s 
all a freight car needed to make it 
move, but as the good Lord made him 
a human bein’ an’ gave him power to 
push himself, he ought to be his own 
engine. Then I asked him what kind 
of opportunities he wanted, as there 
wuz all kinds floatin’ around. 

* * * 

“Jim didn’t know he hadn’t decided; 
all he wanted wuz an’ opportunity to 
make some money an’ show these fel¬ 
lers, who wuz rubbin’ it in on him, 
where they got off an’ he wuzn’t the 
dummy they took him fer either. I 
told him makin’ money wuz easy 
enough; he could take to counterfit- 
tin’, but if he got caught at it he would 
have the opportunity to land in jail 
where he’d have a chance to think 
over his opportunities with nothin’ to 
disturb his mind. Then Jim told me 
I wuz agin him too. but he’d show 
me he wuz no slob an’ he’d make good 
yet. I wuz really glad fer him to say 


that, but I’m a tninkin’ Jim will have 
a change some before he can do it. 

* * * 

“There’s lots of fellers talkin’ an’ 
grumblin’ like Jim, spoutin’ they never 
had any opportunities, but they’re 
blind just like a new born kitten. 
Why man alive there’s all kinds of 
them a buzzin’ around; all we have 
to do is take our pick. There’s op¬ 
portunities to work, do good, do bad, 
waste our time or improve it, to ad¬ 
vance in life or git on the skids an’ 
shoot the other way an’ so many oth¬ 
ers I ain’t got time to tell you. Now 
nine times out of ten, when Jim picks 
his opportunity, he’ll choose one that 
don’t require any thinkin’, just like 
a baboon pickin’ cocoanuts, all it has 
to do is pick ’em, an’ all Jim wanted 
wuz a job, so he wouldn’t have to 
think. 

* * * 

“Folks like Jim are always hollerin’ 
because they can’t git easy money, 
that don’t require any thinkin’, but 
there’s just about as much chance of 
them gittin’ along as there is in Mr. 
Rockerfeller sendin’ them a million 
dollars on a golden shovel or me pick¬ 
in’ watermelons off a potato vine. Op¬ 
portunities! Why the woods is full 
of them, we’re surrounded with them, 
they’re waitin’ fer some one to lasso 
them. Opportunities is like a feller 
kickin’ a can filled with diamonds 
about the street. He did not know 
what was in the can and when he 
heard the rattle he wuz so afferd that 
some one would give him the laugh if 
he picked the can up, but along comes 
another feller, gives the can a shot 
with his foot, hearin’ somethin’ an’ 
not bein’ so proud, he picks the can 
up an’ finds the diamonds. Opportuni¬ 
ties comes to the feller that’s nosin’ 




10 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


around—lookin’ fer them an’ the fel¬ 
ler that’s too proud to bend his neck, 
an’ gits down to it, misses them. 

* # * 

“I don’t believe in the old sayin: 
‘That opportunities knock at every 
man’s door once in a life time.’ That’s 
all rot. Opportunities don’t knock an’ 
no one ever heard ’em knock, fer if 
they did our own ears couldn’t stand 
the racket, the bangin’ would be worse 
than any boiler factory goin’ full 
blast. Opportunities don’t come 
around with a brass band an’ bass 
drums, notifyin’ folks it has come fer 
them, but they come along quiet an’ 
respectible-like, wantin’ some one to 
grab ’em, nurse ’em an’ stick to ’em 
after they’re landed them an’ then 
they got to work, so they wont git 
loose or git away from us. Opportuni¬ 
ties is like poor lone orphans when we 
take ’em in we got to take care of 
them by hustlin’ an’ studying an’ if 
we do that we git our reward. 

* sic * 

“Years ago folks used to have big 
chunks of metal, iron or brass, hang- 
in’ on their doors, an’ when anyone 
wanted to git in they banged this hunk 
up and down an’ it would jar the 
whole house sometimes. So next they 
got out bells, hooked up with wire, 
one end fixed to the bell and the other 
stickin’ outside, with a handle on the 
end of it. To git in we pulled the 
handle any where from six inches to 
six feet, before the bell would ring. 
Now we got electric bells, so all we 
got to do is to push a little button an’ 
the bell will tinkle. So with the door 
of opportunities, we don’t have to 
hammer or pull, but we do have to 
push, an’ keep on a pushin’, an’ the 
door will open, an’ this pushin’ I men¬ 
tion is nothin’ more or less than study- 
in’, keepin’ your eyes open, an’ wmrk- 
in’. I’ll bet you don’t know what op¬ 
portunities is yet with all my talk¬ 
in’. 

* * * 

Now take a feller workin’ in a shop 
an’ hankerin’ after an opportunity to 
advance himself, yet all the time he’s 
there, he is like the feller kickin’ 
around the can of diamonds, an’ won’t 


pick it up. He only knows what the 
boss tells him to do about the job he 
is workin’ on. He can’t suggest any¬ 
thing, because he don’t know where 
the part fits in. He is like a three- 
legged cat a scratchin’ its left ear; 
it can’t scratch its right ear because 
the right leg is missin’. Yet every 
day he is workin’ at the same 
old thing an’ wonders why he don’t 
advance, git a better job and more 
money. It’s simply he does not study 
his job, his brains stop at the end of 
his fingers, an’ makes no attempt to 
study it; he knows only one thing, an’ 
is as bad off as the three-legged cat. 
Now if he wuz a pushin’ an learnin* 
all about his work, he’ll know as much 
if not more than the boss, who is 
watchin’, because the quality an’' 
quantity of your work will show it; it 
will make him sit up an’ take notice, 
an’ your opportunity is goin’ to show 
up. There is no more danger of you 
missin’ it, than the old prophet Eli¬ 
jah, missin’ the chariot that took him 
to Heaven. You’ll make good too, if 
you keep your eyes open an’ your 
brains a workin’. 

* * * 

“Didn’t Columbus study an’ learn, 
the earth wuz round; so he sailed an* 
discovered America. Didn’t Eli Whit¬ 
ney study how to take seeds out of 
cotton pods an’ seein’ a cat tryin’ to 
pull a chicken out of a coop, between 
the slats, an’ all it could do wuz to 
yank off the feathers, an’ he saw the 
cotton gin that did 3000 men’s work 
in one day. Didn’t George Westing- 
house study to git up the air brake to 
operate from an engine cab to stop 
trains, an’ readin’ about compressed 
air, he put his brake on the market. 
Didn’t Edison, Ford, Bell an’ lots of 
other men work fer years to complete 
their inventions? Now if Chris, Eli, 
George, Henry, Alex and the rest of 
them hadn’t worked an’ studied, day 
after day, an’ all at once their op¬ 
portunities come, they never would 
have succeeded. If they’d bummed, 
an’ got cold feet, they would have lost 
their opportunities, an’ couldn’t make 
good, any more than a monkey could 
pick its teeth with a telegraph pole. 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


11 


I don’t believe in luck any more than 
Solomon Isaacs does in eatin’ pork; 
luck is a freak that shows up once in 
a while, just like my neighbor’s cat, 
that keeps us awake at night, with its 
yowlin’; it can’t be depended on, if 
it could we’d use it for an alarm 
clock. But I do believe in opportuni¬ 
ties, if we want ’em we got to go af¬ 
ter them, and when we get them, hang 
to them. We don’t tie a brick to our 
line when we go fishin’; we git out 
our line an’ hook an’ bait it, an’ your 
bait fer opportunities is studyin’ an’ 
learnin’ an’ watchin’. 

* * * 

The fellers that is hollerin’ fer op¬ 
portunities don’t want to work or 
study; they work because they have 
to, an’ when they git out of a job they 
feel worse than a feller with the 
gripes. (If you ever had the gripes, 
you’ll never forget them.) They don’t 
want to work, only the money attach¬ 
ed to the job, an’ when they’re broke 
its a painful feelin’, just like the 
gripes, particularly when no prospect 
is in sight to get any. Now the good 
Lord says we all have to work, an’ 
that settles it, an’ the feller that don’t 
like work, an’ isn’t sick, is lazy, down¬ 
right lazy an’ nothin’ else. Why he 
don’t know what fun he is missin’, fer 
there is more fun workin’ than loafin’. 
I know, I’ve had the experience. Now 
when you’ve worked an’ studied, an’ 
landed your opportunity, its a grand 
jubilee fer you, your family an’ 
friends. Some fellers think they’re 
havin’ a royal good time a loafin’, but 
that kind of a time has a certain 
gnawin’ feelin’, that’s mighty disagree¬ 
able, an’ the regrets of what you 
might have done, grows bigger an’ 
bigger, as time rolls on, that’ll keep 
you awake at nights, when you think 
about it, but when you have made 
good, by your studyin’ an’ workin’, 
you’ve built a monument better than 
any you see in any grave yard; for 
one covers the dead, while yours cov¬ 
ers you while you’re a livin’, an’ an 
honor to you and yours, to be ad¬ 
mired by those who want to follow 
your example. 


“Now some fellers think they can 
steal opportunities, but if they do, 
they can’t make good, any more than 
Paddy, who tried to steal the rope. 
You all know the story. There wuz 
the rope a danglin’ in front of him, 
reachin’ away up in the air, so Paddy 
figured, if he dumb the rope, an’ cut it 
off below where his hands wuz, how 
was he goin’ to get down, as the rope 
would drop, an’ if he cut it above his 
hands, he would drop with the rope, 
an’ git hurted. He wuz up against it 
both ways, so that is the way with 
stealers of opportunities, they can’t 
git away with it, because they haven’t 
studied, learned, worked, an’ didn’t 
push. 

* * * 

“The first thing to do, if you want 
opportunities of the right kind, is to 
make up your mind, you have to work, 
an’ you can’t dodge it. So when we 
have an important job on our hands 
is to git ready fer it. Go to bed at a 
decent time, so you can git up feelin* 
fine, after a good night’s sleep, snift 
in God’s fresh air, breath it in your 
lungs, git it all through you, an’ then 
git on your job; not beatin’ to it, like 
a streak of lightnin’, fer fear you 
might be late, but take your time, en¬ 
joyin’ the beautiful mornin’, singin’ 
songs of gladness, that you are well 
an’ strong. Be full of ginger, an’ not 
like a sick calf, that needs a dose 
of jolep to keep it on its feet, an’ then 
start in, an’ you’ll enjoy -the fun work- 
in’. It makes no difference how hara 
the work is, your brain is in good 
workin’ condition, they ain’t befouled 
by bein’ up nearly all night, you ain’t 
tired out by workin’ your brains over 
pool tables, gamblin’ or dancin’ or 
anything like that, an’ then expect 
them to work overtime an’ git results. 
Opportunities don’t hang around folks 
that has cob-webby brains in the morn- 
in’s; w'hen they discover that condi¬ 
tion in your brain box, they won’t 
stick. But when you are fresh an’ 
happy an’ keep it up, why all eyes will 
be on you, and with your studyin’ an’ 
learnin’, along comes opportunity, an’ 
then fellers will wonder why you got 
it, an’ claim all you know is work.. 


12 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


You can expect that, but don’t let up, 
workin’ in the garden of opportunities 
is like cultivatin’ a field of flowers, 
you get big results, and you’ll get so 
much fun out of it, you can’t stop. If 
you don’t believe me, try it out. 

* * * 

“Don’t let your brains git rusty. God 
gave them to you to use, an’ we got to 
train them just like the muscles of our 
bodies; if we don’t, they will git stale 
an’ they ain’t worth any more than 
the brains of a chicken; for all it 
knows is hunt grub and cackle, an’ the 
feller that don’t use his brains is just 
like them, all he’s doin’ is huntin’ 
grub an’ cacklin’. Don’t be a hen. 

* * * 

“I read once that a feller went to 
President Lincoln to git a pass to 
Richmond an’ he wuz told that the 
President had been a tryin’ fer two 
.years to git his army there, an’ hadn’t 


succeeded yet, but the gent got there 
all right by joinin’ the army, an’ it’s 
just the same with folks who want 
opportunities, they got to join this 
class. It makes no difference where 
a man works or what he does, if he 
studies, learns an’ works, he’s goin’ 
to git there, fer the more you use your 
brains, the more valuable you are to 
yourself, family and community. Re¬ 
member a dollar in your pocket is a 
good friend to those who know how 
to use it, but a curse to those who 
don’t, an’ when you’ve done your part, 
takin’ care of those dependin’ on you, 
raisin’ and educatin’ your children 
right, an’ not neglectin’ your oppor¬ 
tunities as the days roll by, you have 
done all the good Lord wants you to 
do, an’ although your name may not 
be written in letters of gold, so the 
whole world can read it, you have set 
yourself up as a guide post, for future 
generations to come.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


13 . 


HEADS VS. HANDS 


Bluff Won’t Pull You Through Any More Than a Rat Can 

Pull a Freight Train 


“A feller come to me the other day, 
an’ pleaded fer me to hire him, said 
Farmer John one day. “He told me a 
harrowin’ story about his family, an’ 
about how much hard luck he had. 
While I wuz sorry about his misfor¬ 
tunes an’ all that sort of thing, what 
I wanted to know wuz what he knew 
about farmin’. I didn’t want a clerk 
or bookkeeper or anything like that, 
but a feller that understood about 
farmin’. 

“Why man alive, before he finished 
about his life’s history, he must a 
knowed about everything under the 
sun. He knew more about farmin’ 
than anybody I ever heard about. In 
fact it made me nervous to think how 
much he knowed and how little I did. 

“Well, the upshot of it wuz I hired 
him an’ he told me he would take a 
chance with me. I didn’t know what 
he ment by that, but I soon found out. 
* * * 

“I started him a hoein’ corn an’ went 
about my work. In a couple of hours 
I called on him. He wuz leanin’ agin 
his hoe, admirin’ the scenery. He had 
hoed about a hundred hills. I looked 
at them, an’ goodness to gracious he’d 
cut the corn all down. I wuz real glad 
he stopped or I wouldn’t had any left. 

“I asked him what he called the corn 
he cut down. ‘Grass,’ he said. An’ 
that? I asked, pointing to the potato 
field. ‘Them’s weeds,’ he replied. 

“ ‘I thought you said you wuz a farm¬ 
er,’ I said. 

“ ‘Oh, I’m any old thing. I told you 
I’d take a chance with you; farmin’ 
ain’t nothin’ to me,’ he replied. 

“ ‘If farmin’ ain’t nothin’ to you, it is 
to me, an’ I’m goin’ to take a chance 
with you, to see how quick you can 
git over that fence, an’ git goin’ down 


that road, fer lyin’ to me an’ cuttin’ 
down my corn.’ 

“He wanted to argue, but I wuz so 
mad that I picked up my hoe an’ went 
fer him. He turned and run like fury, 
jumped over the fence and down the 

road, that I couldn’t see him fer dust. 
* * * 

Now there’s just the trouble, too 
many men are takin’ a chance to git 
by when there’s no need of it. If the 
job ain’t anything to them, it is to 
the man that hires him. He must 
have the work done to git results. I 
had to git my corn hoed; no hoein’, 
no corn. And it ended in my losin’ 
a hundred hills of it. To the average 
man, jobs is like givin’ a hungry man 
a meal, it’s nothin’ to one who gives 
it, but a big thing to the feller that 
gets it. 

“Since then I’ve been a studyin’ this 
question, and its got me all twisted. 
Here the good Lord has given us 
hands, with heads to direct them. Too 
many folks are using only one part 
of their producin’ plant. They are so 
all fired lazy, some folks will only use 
their brains enough to keep their 
hands out of trouble, and some can’t 
do that. Other fellers will use their 
heads to dodge work to pertect their 
hands, as if they wuz beautiful lillies 
not to be soiled by work, an’ they’d 
feel worse than old Aunt Hetty losin*' 
her false teeth, if any callous should 
get on them. 

“We might as well try to run a loco¬ 
motive by blowin’ in the steam pipe 
through a straw as to make a success 
of life by usin‘ one-half of the plant 
the Lord has given us. He gave us 
brains and hands to use jointly and if 
we don’t we lose out. 

“In lookin’ over the papers I wuz 
surprised to find out how many jobs. 




14 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


wuz open fer fellers that didn’t have 
to use their brains, only hands. In 
fact some of them guaranteed not to 
use brains, but if they would they 
could advance themselves, if the brains 
could stand the strain with usin’ the 
liands at the same time. I guess some 
of these bosses got bit, just the same 
as me. 

“Then there wuz jobs ready fer men 
who had trained their brains, who 
could direct their hands an’ they wuz 
offered big wages. Why if I had to 
pay wages like that I would give them 
the farm an’ take the wages. Wuzn’t 
I sorry I wuz so old, fer I would a 
done my darndest to land one of them. 
So even the papers say that fellers 
with dried up brains ain’t in the run- 
uin’. 

* * * 

“I wuz in the big city once and I 
come to one of the parks which seem¬ 
ed jammed full of men. I thought a 
big picnic wuz takin’ place, so I asked 
one of them about it. He told me they 
wuz men out of work, lookin’ fer jobs. 
So I asked him whether the jobs pa¬ 
raded before them and they could take 
their pick as they passed by. He told 
me I wuz a “hick.” I didn’t know 
what that wuz so I left him, fer I 
'thought if I wuz lookin’ fer a job I 
would use my feet, an’ git a move on 
not squattin’ on a park bench. I asked 
some more of them what they could do 
and they told me ‘anything.’ I 
'thought so to, from appearances that 
crowd could do anything and anybody, 
an’ do them good too, just like the 
feller done me on my corn. 

* * * 

“There they wuz. Some of them had 
their hoofs stuck out over the path 
and if anybody touched them they’d 
swear like troopers. Others wuz 
sprawled out all over the bench, bar- 
rin’ anybody else from sittin’ down. 
Some needed shavin’, their whiskers 
projectin’ like the spines on a big 
burr. Others wuz so dirty they’d 
soil mud. Why if you hired one of 
those fellers I’d bet you’d watch them, 
armed with a shot gun. 

“No doubt some of these fellers had 
brains. I don’t know how long ago, 


fer the good Lord gave them some, 
but they evidently got rusty and need¬ 
ed oilin’, so they wouldn’t squeak 
when they used them. They must have 
been in their heads still, fer I didn’t 
see any holes they could fall out of, 
except through their mouth. 

Now I didn’t know how bad these 
fellers wanted a job, and probably 
some of them wuz a prayin’ they 
wouldn’t get any and the best way to 
dodge one wuz to perch on one of 
lliose benches. 

* * * 

“Now the good Lord tells us ‘To do 
what our hands find to do, with all our 
might,” but these fellers wuz sittin’ 
like statues. They wuzn’t usin’ their 
hands, but another portion of their 
body and looked as if they wuz glued. 
Now if they kept that up very long 
they would have to git their trousers 
half soled. Why a blind man could 
tell how they done their work, fer if 
they really wanted work their shoes 
would show it, and if they wuz loafers, 
their breeches done the trick. Old 
mother earth has a way of showin’ 
us up all right. 

“These fellers wuzn’t always this 
way. When they wuz younger and 
started out to make a livin’ they wuz 
ambitious and looked neat, but things 
come too easy. Getting their money 
wuz like takin’ candy from a baby, 
and of course bein’ smart they didn’t 
make good use of their time, they did¬ 
n’t have to; they wuz too clever. But 
the old world wuz smarter and sim¬ 
ply shot a head of them and they soon 
wuz out classed. No doubt, at night, 
to git rested, they put in their time in 
pool rooms and queer social clubs, to 
enlarge their social activities and 
where their ability would be appreci¬ 
ated. While doin’ this, they lost out 
and become back numbers. They wuz 
pickin’ out their perch on bummer’s 
row, gettin’ duly tagged and labelled 
and didn’t know it. 

* * * 

“Don’t the good Lord tell us we must 
all work fer the glory of God. Now 
how much glory would these fellers 
show when all they could do wuz to 
play pool, poker and give the records 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


15 


of “pugs.” Think how pleased the 
good Lord would be when they showed 
their skill slamin’ balls in pockets of 
pool tables, or skinin’ their fellow 
man at cards, usin’ up the brains the 
Lord gave us, and let the real work 
that would do us all good pass by. 

“If we went into a dry goods store 
to buy goods, the clerk don’t have to 
inform us how to bank a combination 
shot on a pool table, nor tell us how 
he won a pot at poker on a couple of 
deuces, but what we want to know is 
what kind of goods we wuz buyin’. 
That is what he wuz paid fer, so he 
wouldn’t be givin‘ his boss a square 
deal, nor us either, if he didn’t change' 
"his ways; he wuz gettin’ his perch 
ready on bummer’s row. 

* * * 

Very few men admit he’s a dummy, 
fer they generally brag about how 
much they know, but strange to say, it 
don’t take them long to tell it. Now 
when this class of fellers look fer a 
job they’ll swear they can do any¬ 
thing and it don’t take long to show 
them up, just like my corn man. They 
don’t work fer the glory of God and 
their fellow man, only fer themselves. 
They are like the ostrich that buries 
its head in the sand and thinks no 
one can see because it can’t. There 
is about as much chance of these fel¬ 
lers winin’ out at their bluff game as 
to put a battleship inside of a peanut 
shell. 

“The world wants brains, yours as 
well as mine, and will pay well fer 
them; so we got to use them or they 
will git away from us. I’ve seen all 
kinds of men put up the bluff how 
much they knew. They’ll git by just 
like the corn hoer. These fellers are 
gittin’ ready fer the perch; there is 
lots of room on it, no crowdin’ is 
necessary. 

* * * 

“There is no excuse fer these kind of 
fellers; with all kinds of schools open 
to learn, free of charge. All one has 
to do is to go, study, use them. You 
don’t have to know it all and more¬ 
over you can’t; it ain’t expected, any 
more than a cat is to lay an egg. If 


you want a tooth pulled you ain’t go- 
in’ to a blacksmith to do it; or build 
a house and call in a shoemaker; you¬ 
’re goin’ to the man that’s studied the 
business, and if they are bluffin’ it 
won’t take you long to find out, provid¬ 
in’ you can stand the operation. If 
you want a machinist, no bricklayer 
or hodcarrier will get the job. If 
you pay the money you want a good 
man and no bluff. 

* * * 

“Some fellers think that after work- 
in’ hours they can do as they please 
until the next day. And so we can, 
providin’ it don’t interfere with the 
next day’s work, for the boss hires our 
brains and hands and we have no 
right to go to him the next day with 
our brains and hands all gummed up 
by dissipation, or our bodies so tired 
we can hardly wiggle. He pays the 
bill and has the right for first-class 
service. If we buy a pair of shoes 
that don’t turn out right, we take them 
right back for we don’t want them; 
so if our brains and hands ain’t right 
the boss has the right to turn us 
down. We can have all the good times 
we want, but don’t expect the boss to 
pay fer it; he won’t. 

* * * 

The man who uses his hands only 
can expect only half wages, and that’s 
just what he gets. But the one who 
has studied, worked and trained his 
brains so he can guide his hands in 
just one line of work, draws the high¬ 
est pay. And the one who just has a 
little smatterin’ of learnin’ comes in 
between, he is usin’ a little more than 
half his producin’ plant and is paid 
accordin’, so the more trained the 
brains, the better the job. 

“Which do you want? It is up to 
us, fer the feller that uses his hands 
only is out of work more than the rest 
and as this is the day fer machinery, 
it can produce more work, with less 
kickin', but the machine ain’t built 
yet that has brains and never will be. 

“So if you think you’re improvin’ 
your time squatin’ in pool rooms or 
perched on park benches lookin’ wise 
as an owl and dumb as a clam, you’re 


16 


PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


liable to be eatin’ snowballs durin’ the 
winter, or fishin’ fer handouts at some 
hash station. 

* * * 

“I’ve met clerks in stores with green 
moss on their teeth and chunks of 
food dingin’ to their clothes which 
had missed connections between their 
plate and face, and a breath that 
should demand an investigation from 
the Board of Health; grumpy and 
grouchy with the customers, wonder 
why they wuz canned. They did not 
have their eyes on their work, but 
the clock, always figurin’ how many 
more hours they had to put in (not 
work), before they got loose; payin’ 
no attention to what they wuz hired 
fer. They wuzn’t much on the start, 
but lightnin’ on the stop. This class 
of men don’t play fair, late hours and 
dissipation has sapped up what little 
energy they had, with hardly enough 
strength left to wrap up a spool of 
thread. So exit clerk, another fer the 
perch. 

“So don’t try the bluff racket, it don’t 
pull you through any more than a 
rat can pull a freight train. Get a 
real job, hang to it, study it and you’ll 


find out lots of folks will want your 
services. 

* * * 

“I’m only an old farmer. We can’t 
git up in the mornin’ feelin’ like a 
pickled codfish. We have to git out 
of the hay before daybreak and keep 
it up until dark. We don’t have head¬ 
aches as we breathe God’s fresh air. 
We hear the birds singin’, an’ rooste'rs 
crowin’, but we got to keep at it to 
keep you fellers who live in the city 
from starvin’ to death. We got to 
study, fight bugs, weeds and all that 
to git results. We ain’t our own boss; 
we’re workin’ fer you, fer if we’d stop 
what would the millions of folks do 
that live in the big cities. We got to 
keep our brains workin’ and our hands 
goin’ all the time, and if you fellers 
do the same the time will come when 
your work will be noticed. So if you 
are honest, use your brains, educate 
them and work. You will rise higher 
in the work you are engaged in, but if 
you don’t get your producin’ plant 
goin’ full capacity and use the tal¬ 
ents God gave you, you can expect the 
skids and go flyin’ to your perch on 
bummer’s row; fer nothin’ stands still 
in this world.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


17 


PAINTIN' THE AIR 


If the Good Lord Answered Those Who want to Damn 
Everything We Would be Out of Luck 


“Did you ever notice how many men 
are paintin’ the air now days?” asked 
Farmer John one day at one of his 

visits at my office. “Fellers that are 
tryin’ to make the air blue with a sul¬ 
phuric smell attached.” 

“You mean swearing and cursing?’’ 
I asked. 

“That’s just it,” replied the Farmer. 
“Even the kids has got the fever and 
are gittin’ our vocabulary down pat, 
and some of them are gittin’ expert at 
it too. I wuz walkin’ down the street 
the other day when I heard a yell. 
Lookin’ up I saw a man drop his ham¬ 
mer, grab his thumb, then start to 
dance. 

“When I got close to him he wuz 
damnin’ his hammer, then his thumb, 
then the hammer and so on. It ap¬ 
pears he wuz drivin’ a nail and his 
hand shook a little. When his thumb 
wuz in the place the nail ought to be, 
he whanged down the hammer. The 
thumb got an awful wollup and of 
course it hurt almost as bad as if he 
got a crack on the shins with a club. 
In his rage he started to ask the Lord 
to damn his hammer and thumb in a 
very energetic manner, speakin’ in 
tones you could hear for a mile more 
or less. That made lots of people 
look. There wuz boys, girls and wom¬ 
en in the crowd who watched him do 
his jig and listenin’ to his remarks. 
When he saw them laugh he stopped, 
spit on his thumb and resumed his 
hammerin’. 

* * * 

“This got me a thinkin’. Suppose 
the good Lord had granted that man’s 
request and damned his thumb. \ ou 
would a seen the most surprised man 
in all the world, for if the thumb wuz 
properly damned and I know the good 


Lord would a made a good job of it, 
we would heard the man yellin’ fer 
two miles, because his thumb would 
been missin’ and he couldn’t pound 
it any more. If spittin’ on it would 
made it stop achin’, why didn’t he do 
it in the first place and not ask God 
to damn it because he put his thumb 
in the wrong place and landin’ his 
hammer in the right place jarred him 
somewhat. 

* * * 

“Now suppose among the bunch of 
kids watchin’ him one of them went 
home thinkin’ how manly it sounded 
to damn things, when goin’ in the door 
stubbed his toes and Willie landed on 
his nose. Just as soon as he got up 
and wipin’ the blood off it he took up 
the carpenter’s style of expressin’ his 
displeasure, caused by the pain; hold- 
in’ his nose in one hand and toes with 
the other and started to dance, damn¬ 
in’ both with the same energy. What 
would happen? Why Willie’s papa 
would reach out his strong right arm, 
grab WiJiie by the collar, escort him 
to some convenient place, lay Willie 
over his knee and with the aid of a 
strap make Willie forget the pain in 
his toes, by transferin’ it to another 
part of his body; makin’ a different 
sort of a wail come from him, one of 
real sorrow and not of rage. WSllie 
would never forget that his papa had 
somethin’ to say about damnin’ things 
around his house, specially when the 
old man had to pay for them. 

* * * 

“Now if the good Lord had taken 
that carpenter, laid him across His 
knee and gave him a paddlin’ for 
damnin’ that thumb, he would nevev 
forget that the thumb wuz loaned to 
him and if it wuz lost, he’d never git 




18 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


another one. That carpenter had a 
lot of gall askin’ the Lord to damn 
his thumb and hammer, fer the Lord 
made that thumb and the materials to 
make the hammer out of and like 
Willie’s papa the Lord has somethin’ 
to say when it comes to damnin’ 

things; they all belong to Him. 

* * * 

“What good did it do that feller to 
curse and swear because he wuz so 
clumsy and crack his thumb? Did the 
folks that heard him go away with 
good feelin’s in their hearts? No 
siree, their ears wuz filled full of that 
paint which he wuz fiilin’ the air with. 
You couldn’t get it out any more than 
you can pick the pin feathers out of 
an oyster. Even the boys and girls 
who heard him would repeat what this 
man said and done for years to come 
and so the story of those curses, with 
the dance thrown in, repeated over 
and over again would continue to 
paint the air and foul the atmosphere 
like the body of deceased skunk, one 

whiff of it and you’ll never forget it. 

* * * 

“Now when I think of it, how many 
things on this earth has escaped be¬ 
in’ damned. I don’t think one thing 
can be mentioned, fer I have heard 
folks damn their fathers, mothers, sis¬ 
ters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, 
friends and folks they never seen or 
heard of; all kinds of religions, 
churches, governments, nearly every¬ 
thing on this earth has had a curse 
put on it by some one. In this coun¬ 
try the things that gits damned the 
most is millionaires continually and 
weather spasmodically, because it 
can’t suit 1,600,000,000 folks at the 
same time, so to save us from bein’ 
torn to pieces or blown up, the good 
Lord manages that Himself. He 
dishes out the weather fer ail man¬ 
kind and He don’t pay any attention 
to the curses attached to that. If He 
did we would git the worst end of the 
deal. 

* * * 

“We are told in the Bible this earth 
wuz made perfect, couldn’t be improv¬ 
ed on, but a snake in the Garden of 
Eden convinced Adam and Eve they 


could do it and they got an awful tum¬ 
ble. We all are sufferin’ from that 
jolt yet. So old Adam still comes in, 
even to this day, because he tried to 
come the ‘three shell’ racket with the 
Lord (Adam, Eve and the snake) fer 
a good round damnin’ because he 
failed. These very same fellers that’s 
doin’ it are claimin’ if they wuz Adam 
they wouldn’t fell fer it (and here is 
where old Lucifer is givin’ them the 
hog laugh), are damnin’ everything 
with all their might, because things 
don’t suit them or don’t go right. 

“Say, ain’t the devil makin’ a good 
thing out of us, makin’ us play a con¬ 
fidence game with the Lord when we 
are buildin’ churches to teach the 
Bible, then start to damn things that 
don’t suit us? If that ain’t playin’ 
a flim-flam game. I don’t know what 
is, fer we are paintin’ the air and put¬ 
tin’ it on mighty thick. 

* * * 

“The Bible tells us that the good 
Lord only answers prayers of .those 
who believe and trust in Him. It’s 
a good thing fer us that is the case, 
fer if the Lord answered all the ap¬ 
peals to damn things we wouldn’t 
have any body on the earth or in it, 
nor anything else. We wouldn’t have 
the earth, so we’d be worse off than 
before the creation, because every¬ 
thing wuz pure then. There would be 
a splotch in this universe where the 
earth once rolled, smeared with the 
paint of curses that would never be 
removed. 

“Now suppose the good Lord would 
call us before Him fer damnin’ things. 
Wouldn’t we have a time try in’ to 
convince Him we wuz right and He 
wrong. Why man alive we’d dodge 
up the first alley we could see to es¬ 
cape. 

* * * 

“The worse kind of damners are 
those who go to church. Some of them 
go often, others not so much, makin’ 
visits every six months or so, expect¬ 
in’ to git enough out of one verse in 
the Bible to last them until they con¬ 
descend to honor the Lord with an¬ 
other visit. When they damn anything 
they do it soft and low. Why this 


19 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


just tickles old Lucifer. He knows 
he has a double-edged cinch on them, 
because they are playin’ the double 
.game. If this kind of folks hire peo¬ 
ple to work fer them and should catch 
them damnin’ their boss, they’d last 
just long enough to get his boot un¬ 
der their coat tails and shoot them 
through the door. How about our 
cursin’ church member? 

* * * 

“Another bunch of people who are 
always damnin’ are those who can’t 
see any kind of a religion except their 
own. They fight and squabble until 
the air is painted thick. This is a 
side issue of Lucifer’s campaign if he 
can git the churches goin’ strong in 
each other’s hair, for he knows if he 
can git a scrap goin’ like this it will 
develop more damns than anything 
else, fer these poor dupes thinks they 
are headed fer Heaven, but old Luci¬ 
fer gits them headed the other way 
and they can’t see it. All these folks 
teach love, but under the devil’s guid¬ 
ance it turns into hate, and when 
they hate they damn, with a big D. 
They all have their paint pot out and 
smearin’ it on. 

* * * 

“Now the Bible says ‘The devil goes 
about like a ragin’ lion’ and he gits 
in our hearts. Now a good way to 
find out whether the devil is inside 
of us is to bang your thumb with a 
hammer, or let someone step on your 
tender corn. If the devil don’t pro¬ 
ceed to make himself known right 
out of your mouth like a ragin’ lion, 
then you are safe. 

* * * 

“We find another big crowd of 
damners in our shops and factories. 
The men damn the bosses, the bosses 
the men. I’m willin’ to vow there 
ain’t anything ever made, or turned 
out in any shop, that hasn’t been 


damned by somebody, at some place 
and some time. Now if the good Lord 
would start to answer some of these 
requests to damn things we would 
stop it very quick, or else we would 
be out of luck. But we know He 
won’t so we are playin’ old Lucifer’s 
game just the same, like Adam did 
years ago. The Bible says ‘The earth 
is the Lord’s, the world and all and 
everything on it,” so what right have 
we got to ask the Lord to damn things 
that don’t belong to us? They are 
loaned to us for our use. We- don’t 
bring anything into the world and w( 
can’t take anything away. What good 
does it do fer us to git out our paint 
pot and discolor the air with curses 
and damns? 

* * * 

“That little jiggerinus we have be 
tween our teeth is either a blessin’ or 
a curse to us, dependin’ on how we 
use it. When we git it wagglin’ be 
sure it waggles the right way. I real¬ 
ly think if we should lose our tongues, 
three-quarters of the lawyers would 
lose their jobs and old Lucifer’s army 
wouldn’t git so many recruits. There 
would not be so many sorrowin’ 

hearts in the world, if we would use 
our tongue the right way. It’s a hard 
job to control it but it can be done, 
if we don’t play the double game. 

* * * 

“Did you ever think that if all these 
curses and damns wuz turned into 

praises and songs to God Almighty, 
what a wonderful chorus it would be; 
how quickly it would turn back the 
streams of sorrow, jealousy, slander 
and all kinds of crime, into joy, hap¬ 
piness and comfort to all. What won¬ 
derful strains would fill the air, un¬ 
til it seem it would reach the very 
portals of Heaven and the angel? 

would take up that mighty chorus of 
peace on earth, good will to man.” 


20 FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 

t i 


Iqf 9fif?0S JJC 

J 1)00^ '■ 

ROBBIN’ THE CHILDREN 


If We Want to Get the Kids Started on the Right Path, 
Suppose We Trot Along the Same Road Ourselves 


“I’m hearin’ a lot about how bad the 
children are gettin’ to be. Folks are 
claimin’ they’re worse than they wuz 
years back/’ remarked Farmer John 
as he came into my office the other 
day. “Now there must be a reason 
for this kind of talk. If kids are bad, 
what makes them so? 

“They wuzn’t bad when they wuz 
born, lookin’ so cute and cunnin’, we 
can’t help lovin’ them. But in a few 
years our feelin’s change and we say 
how bad they are, ought to jail them 
for it, doin’ all kinds of stunts, actin’ 
like a bunch of crazy grasshoppers, 
makin’ us feel like blowin’ them up 
with gunpowder. Now what’s the rea¬ 
son?” 

For the life of me I could not an¬ 
swer, so I ventured the opinion that 
they were bad because they would not 

listen to advice. 

* * * 

“You pretty near hit it,” replied 
the Farmer. “Won’t listen is light. 
The youngsters are gittin’ all kinds of 
advice, but very little example, so 
they set our advice down as ‘hot air.’ 
Say, if we want to get the kids started 
on the right path, suppose we trot 
along that road ourselves. 

“That’s the secret. Not so much 
gab, but more example. Many folks 
give the gab only, so they are robbin’ 
the children of the best part of in¬ 
struction. Kids are mightly weak, 
helpless creatures when they come 
into this world. They’d starve to 
death if they wuzn’t fed. But we slip 
a cog and forget to feed the brain 
that’s strugglin’ for knowledge, so 
they git it somewhere and we won¬ 
der who taught them. 

* * * 

“Now these children is being rob¬ 
bed. They wanted knowledge and we 


kept shovin’ advice into them by the 
yard, and that’s all. We make chil¬ 
dren go to Sunday school to learn all 
about Heaven (that’s about the only 
place they ever will find out about it, 
for there’s mighty few homes that 
takes up the subject) and most of 
them trot alone. So when they see 
the big folks stayin’ at home and tak- 
in’ it easy they git the idea it ain’t 
necessary, so they make up their 
minds to take the same chance as the 
‘old man’ and dodge it. They only 
git the preachin’, but mightly little 
example. 

* * * 

“We are poundin’ into the kids their 
duties to their parents, but we don’t 
mention the parents’ duties to the 
children. How can we expect the 
children to love and obey the parent 
that gets them so disgusted by their 
actions they want to run away from 
them. They know when the parent 
ain’t actin’ right and that parent is 
robbin’ the kids of the love and re¬ 
spect they should have for them, but 
instead of that they are puttin’ them¬ 
selves up as a danger signal to be 
dodged. Do parents know this? And 
by that example those kids won’t ask 
advice of how to live right and what 
to learn; there is no example there. 
So you see the kids is bein’ robbed. 

* * * 

“If the law didn’t compel the chil¬ 
dren to go to school many of them 
would never be able to read and 
write. So this gives many parents 
the chance to pass the ‘buck’ on the 
teachers to take care of them durin” 
school hours. The kids know this, 
they have been told about it many 
times, and the teacher, having no par¬ 
ticular interest in the children except 
hammerin’ the three R’s into their 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


21 


heads, will git rid of them too, just as 
quick as the hands of the clock points 
to the hour. 

“So the kids knowin’ the grown 
folks want to git rid of them, dodge 
the grown folks. They git in bunches, 
like wild colts and bein’ full of in¬ 
genuity and active brains, some weird 
things happen. They are bein’ rob¬ 
bed of proper associations. 

* * * 

“We under value children too much. 
We don’t set the example. We got 
the notion they are only kids and 
don’t know anything and we know 
it all, but we forget their bright, sharp 
eyes are watchin’ and their brains 
workin’, and follow our example, with 
added additions. 

“Now if father, siftin’ at the din¬ 
ner table, sees some particular food 
he likes, grabs the dish and scoops 
most of it on his plate, you watch 
those kids. Let papa turn his eyes 
and like a streak of lightnin’, they will 
dive into the food they like, imitatin’ 
papa. If there are several children, 
all makin’ a stab fer the same piece, 
a riot starts. 

“Who is to blame? He robbed his 
children of the knowledge of actin’ 
right at the table. He acted the hog 
and the kids follow like a pack of 
shoats. 

* * * 

“Home is the only place that chil¬ 
dren get their first knowledge of the 
world. It is there they form their 
first ideas that affect their future 
life. They should be taught to respect 
and love it, a place of refuge at all 
times. If the parents don’t set the 
example, how can we ask the children 
to. If the head of the house comes 
home drunk, curses and swears, act¬ 
in’ like seven devils on a rampage, 
does he think his children will be 
angels? If the home is not kept neat, 
clean and orderly and any old thing 
goes, the kids will match it every 
time, and startin’ out in life under a 
tremendous handicap many will never 
git over it. 

“Whose fault is that? We can’t 
blame it on the kids, who have been 
robbed of the affection an love of the 


home, the only one they ever knew. 
You big folks know what you wanted 
when you wuz young, and your chil¬ 
dren have just the same feelin’s. So 
don’t take advantage of your size and 
let the kids fight it out alone. A 
coward only would do that; set the 
example. 

* * * 

“We brag about bein’ honest, but 
we don’t realize how much we are 
robbin’ the kids, pattin’ them on the 
head and tellin’ them how much we 
love them and skinin’ them behind 
their backs robbin’ them of their 
respect of the law. How can they 
respect the law, with the papers 
full of stories about law violations, 
folks killin’ each other, stealin’, takin’ 
advantage of our neighbors, cursin’ 
and damnin’ our fellowman, and every 
kind of dirty tricks. 

“Say, our kids ain’t doin’ so bad 
after all, with these bright and shin¬ 
in’ examples right under their nose. 
With the outside world actin’ like this 
can’t we see how important it is that 
parents should set the example, and 
with advice keep the children on the 
right track. But if we don’t, we can’t 
kick if the kids act like young de¬ 
mons, for we have robbed them. If 
we want the children to act decent, 
we got to act decent ourselves and 

show them how. 

* * * 

“I have been in homes where folks 
git along like two strange bull dogs 
fightin’ over a bone. The battle never 
stops, sort of a continuous affair. We 
can’t blame the kids when they take 
up the cudgels, fight, scream, yell and 
argue. Look at the example they got. 
They have been robbed of the pleas¬ 
ures of home, which they will never 
forget. Instead of peace and love, 
they have been taught contention. 
What’s the use of turnin’ your home 
into a trouble makin’ plant. Show 
these children the right way and don’t 
turn out a bunch of ‘pugs.’ 

“Children have nerves, just the 
same as grown folks and when fussi¬ 
ness rules the house, contentions 
start in. In a home like this more or¬ 
ders are issued in a short time than 


22 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


would run the entire army durin’ the 
late war. Fussiness makes cowards 
and moral imbeciles of children. It 
destroys their initiative and gits them 
afraid of doin’ anything alone. 

* * * 

“Did you ever notice that a fussy 
mother will have fussy daughters and 
reckless sons. And these girls will 
soon be adept at gossipin’. No doubt 
she does these things unconsciously; 
she is robbin’- her children, makin’ 
mollycoddles out of them instead of 
little men and women. Too much in¬ 
dependence gives children the swelled 
head and not enough makes them 
helpless. We got to give them the 
right doses. 

“We preach about Lincoln, Garfield, 
Franklin and other poor boys who 
started out in life and became na¬ 
tional figures; but we don’t tell the 
secret of it. It is, they had to think 
for themselves and think right. We 
have lost many a brilliant man be¬ 
cause he was not shown how to 
think for himself. Why many of us 
don’t realize the child is a man un¬ 
til we git a jolt caused by them doin’ 
clever things. When we teach about 
how these men become great, show T 
how they used their own noddle. Don’t 
rob the kid from thinkin’. Show them 
how. 

“We must, show the children how 
to be industrious. They always want 
something to do, so show them and 
they will surprise you how many won¬ 
derful things they can do. Have 
them apply their desires in the right 
way, for they will not be denied. We 
have too many cake eaters in this 
world; we want bread winners. 

“Why I could write a big book about 
how we are robbin’ the children. I 
ain’t told half of it. You can pick the 
rest out yourself. We ain’t got no 
right to howl about the kids not act¬ 
in’ right, all they got packed away 
in their heads comes from what they 
see, read and hear, and like most 
folks, will take the course of least re¬ 
sistance. No country will be greater 
than its people, and to make this coun¬ 
try great we can’t afford to rob the 
children. To give them a p«rt in the 


home life if you want them iiiociested 
in it. 

* * * 

“Children are entitled to pleasures. 
It should not be denied them. Get 
their confidence. You can’t do it with 
a club, but you can by associatin’ with 
them. Wlhy many folks ain’t ac¬ 
quainted with their own children, and 
make no effort to know them, but 
shove them on to some one else who 
has no interest in them, except com¬ 
mon decency. They must be encour¬ 
aged when they want to tackle some 
laudable thing. Let them make mis¬ 
takes, it will teach them what to 
avoid; give them the value of your 
experience and don’t put yourself on 
a pedestal, makin’ them think you 
never made any mistakes. Advice is 

cheap, but examples are very scarce. 

* * * 

“The foundation of every success¬ 
ful life is the alphabet and the ten 
commandments. Every child has the 
right to an education, and should be 
encouraged by attending school and 
studies and conversations at home. 
Coupled with those great command¬ 
ments a good and well spent life is 
assured. But what is the good of 
teachin’ them if you don’t practice 
them; for that turns the child the 
other way. Don’t fool the children; 
if you do, they won’t forget it and 
our influence is gone, for these very 
same children will run this govern¬ 
ment some day. All our professional 
and tradesmen will come out of the 
great army of children and if we set 
the example our actions will be handed 
down to succeedin’ generations and 
the good work will live until the end 
of time. 

* * * 

“The Bible teaches us we must train 
up the child in the way it should go 
and when he is old he will not depart 
from it. As this is our time for this 
trainin’ we are responsible to the 
great Creator for the carryin’ out of 
this great precept. We can’t dodge 
the orders. We must set the example 
and give the instructions, thus exem¬ 
plify in’ that remarkable truth, ‘A 
little child shall lead them’.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


23 


WORLD’S BIGGEST COLLEGE 


It Has Millions of Graduates Every Year and Many Are 
Turned Out But Half Educated 


Farmer John, when he came into 
the office, asked me a question, in¬ 
stead of me asking him one. “Say,” 
he inquired, “What do folks mean by 
stickin’ to your alum maker?” 

“Alum maker,” I replied, “What do 
you mean?” 

“Why this thing you stick to, when 
you go to college. I heard a song 
about the alum maker. What is that?’’ 

“Oh, you mean alma mater, why 
that means ‘Fostering Mother’ and is 
used when we speak of the college 
we attend, and we should always 
stick to it.’’ 

“That’s it, eh! I wuz wonderin’ 
what it wuz; now I know. Well I wuz 
readin’ about the colleges, where 
young folks go to learn more, and they 
do. Some more good, and the rest 
of them bad. Just depends on the 
feller. It’s dern easier to swaller the 
bad, it’s a mighty sugary dose to take, 
but when you get full of it, it gets 
sour all at once and somethin’ hap¬ 
pens to your system.” 

* * * 

As usual I let the Farmer intro¬ 
duce the subject, for he thinks some 
very original ideas. 

“So you think evil is an easy dose, 
to take?” I inquired. 

“Too easy,” he answered, “just like 
the weeds growin’ on my farm. They 
can ripen quicker, blow the seeds all 
around and get new crops quicker 
than anything I ever heard of. Weeds 
is easy to grow, but if we let them 
alone we would all starve to death. 

* * * 

“But talkin’ about colleges; all 
these big schools claim they are the 


biggest and the cheapest. I think 
they’re wrong. Now the biggest col¬ 
lege in the world don’t advertise fer 
pupils, but when they come, they git 
a royal reception in most cases. It 
don’t brag about what they teach; 
don’t charge anything either. In fact 
the college pays them to go. Now 
what do you think of a college like 
that?’’ asked the Farmer. 

“I think a college such as you de¬ 
scribe could not last very long. I never 
heard of it. Where is it?” 

“Never heard of it? Why you grad¬ 
uated from one, and you didn’t get 
any diploma either. The world is full 
of this college, it has branches all 
over it.” 

“I don’t understand you yet,” I said, 
Where is it?” 

* * * 

“It’s the home.’’ That’s the biggest 
college in the world. What big col¬ 
lege is equal to this ‘fosterin’ mother.* 
What college is turnin’ out more grad¬ 
uates than these same homes, lettin’ 
them loose in the world, most of them 
half educated, some none at all; let- 
tin’ them go slammin’ and flounderin’ 
around, simply lost, because they wuz- 
n’t teached the fine points of the 
game. Insted of helpin’, they git the 
skids shoved under them and before 
they can git a good holt on the down¬ 
ward rush to stop the speed, some of 
them are ruined fer good.” 

* * * 

“What’s your idea of it?” I asked. 

“Well we got to start at the begin- 
nin’, to get this college goin’ right. 
When two young folks make up their 
minds to git married, they got to 
build on the right kind of love. That 
sticks tighter then the cement that 
holds the pyramids together. Some- 




24 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


thin’ that will stand. When they git 
that, there is no storms of life that 
will break it down, and if they ain’t 
got it they had better not start the 
home. We can’t fill this cement full 
of dirt, nor have coo much sand or 
squirt too much water in it. If we do, 
it won’t hold, any more than my kid 
can balance a ten-ton girder on the 
end of its nose. Somethin’s goin’ to 
drop. Then good bye that section of 
the college. 

* * * 

“Now this college always starts 
with two. After awhile the pupils show 
up. They ain’t asked, but they come 
anyhow. Then the education part of 
it starts. So the first question to be 
settled is ‘Whose goin’ to be the boss?’ 
That’s mighty hard to do. Why the 
little youngster has got everything it’s 
own way and before we know it he 
finds out he has got some pull in that 
college factory. To start right the in¬ 
structors have got to make good. Now 
it ain’t my place to tell how to do it, 
fer every pupil must be handled differ¬ 
ent, and as it grows older the job gits 
harder and so does the education. 

* * * 

“Now there is no use of tellin’ your 
pupil how to do things. You got to 
show them by example how to do it, 
fer they think every thing the teach¬ 
ers do is just right fer a few years 
anyway, until they git old enough to 
compare your teachin’s with some one 
elses. Then if they find out you went 
shy on the education the instructors 
lose out to some extent. So the time 
comes when they got to be taken into 
partnership. Some folks think the kids 
ain’t got any rights, but they got as 
much right and probably more than 
either of the originators of that cor¬ 
poration. They organized by mutual 
consent, but the kid wuzn’t consulted 
at all. They just come. So the home 
must be kept up, as nice as possible. 
It don’t have to be furnished like a 
millionaire’s, for if the true love is 
there, that fills all the vacant spots, 
but if its missin’, you might as well 
try to raise a young calf on sawdust as 
to raise that kid right. 


“We know that the average iolks 
got to work hard to keep that college 
goin’, so if the instructors git it into 
their heads that the other has the 
snap, jealousy sneaks in and your pu¬ 
pil gits some instruction that ain’t on 
the books. So if the college wants to 
raise a set of young pugilists, just 
keep it up and they will join in the 
fracas too. Your pupils are mighty 
good followers when they have the 
example. 

^ sH * 

“The home should be kept in order. 
AnoTher hard thing to do. So the ex¬ 
ample has to be set. If the head male 
instructor comes home, slams his stuff 
all around, can’t find it when he wants 
to use it again, then the lady instruc¬ 
tor will also get into it, and not to be 
outdone the junior members of the 
firm continues the good work. We 
have another branch of teachin’ that’s 
bein’ ignored and somethin’ that will 
stick through life. No home can be 
happy without system. 

“Then sometimes the superintend¬ 
ent of the home will set aside a room 
fer company and no one can use it 
except strangers, a sort of a ‘holy 
place’ affair. The livin’ apartments 
of that college is fer all to use. If 
we have order and system, it ain’t 
goin’ to hurt it a bit fer the members 
of the corporation to use it, fer the 
stranger don’t care a snap about your 
entertainin' room once they are out of 
it any more than a cat that rushes 
into a dog house to git out of the rain. 
The livin’ rooms should be open at 
all times for the members of your col¬ 
lege. 

* * * 

“At the table is one of the biggest 
educators of any home. If the heads 
of the house make a noise like some 
one playin’ ‘Yankee Doodle’ on a horse 
fiddle, or sounds like the hissin’ of a 
suction pump when they tackle the 
soup, or gobble your food like crunch- 
in’ stone in a rock crusher, or grab ev¬ 
erything in sight, regardless of any¬ 
body else, you will have a combination 
of instruction by practical example 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


25 


that will give a first class imitation of 
the animals we make sausage out of. 
It pays to debar this particular line. 
Set the example and the pupils will 
follow you. They are first class ob¬ 
servers. 

$ jj! 

“It is at the table that family en¬ 
couragement is given, but only when 
at a private session and not when you 
have visitors. Let your pupils know 
they are an important part of the cor¬ 
poration. Take an interest in what 
they learn on the outside. Find out 
with whom they associate, what they 
have learned. Instruct them what to 
expect in life; for if the heads of the 
firm don’t do it, your pupils will get 
it on the outside. They will get their 
little noddles filled full of junk that 
they will never forget. Don’t encour¬ 
age gossip, but show them the mis¬ 
takes of life as they are talked over. 
Teach your pupils how to think and 
think right. If you don’t see an im¬ 
provement in your college if you do 
this, something is wrong with the 
teachers. 

* * * 

“Too many folks permit visitors to 
talk anyway they please, not being 
particular with the language used. A 
good way to control this is to have 
the Bible prominently displayed. 
When any visitor sees this, language 
is guaged accordingly. But the in¬ 
structors must not use bad language 
themselves. They are the ones that 
set the example and whatever they do 
everyone in the house, includin’ visi¬ 
tors, will do the same thing. Do not 
permit any questionable stories to be 
told. Don’t set the example or your 
pupils will take it up and the first 
thing you know they will be able to 
open your eyes along that line. If 
you don’t respect your college, no 
one else will. 

* * * 

“Some men think it clever to go 
home and tell how cute they have 
been in a business deal, or how they 
got a snootful of booze when they 
know it is against the law, or done 


other things they know is prohibited. 
This kind of an education given to 
your pupils breaks down their respect 
for the law and you also. You have 
given them practical examples of how 
to do it, so if the pupils in their as¬ 
sociations do mean things look your¬ 
self over and see wiiat you have done 
to give them the idea how to do it 
also. If you don’t want to graduate 
criminals in your college don’t set the 
example. 

% % % 

“I have seen children yell and 
scream about goin’ to Sunday school, 
and I don’t blame them for the in¬ 
structors will be takin’ it easy. The 
pupils following the example want to 
do the same. Of course every child 
should have religious instruction, but 
suppose you try some of it in your col¬ 
lege and take a trip with them to the 
Sunday school. Get acquainted with 
the kids and don’t shove all the pray¬ 
in’ fer the whole college on them. Set 
the example and do some yourself. 

* * * 

“Make your college a loafin’ place 
fer the pupils. Encourage them to 
ask their chums to visit them. Take 
a part in the entertainin’ and you will 
be surprised how little they will want 
to run around the streets at night. 
No pupil will leave any place where 
they have a good time. Besides this 
it permits the instructors to get a line 
on the pupil’s comrades and you can 
keep them straight too. I think if 
parents would pay attention to this 
study, instead of lettin’ pupils run 
wild, we would have less trouble with 
them. If we want the kids to re¬ 
spect us, we must respect them and 
their feelin’s, if they are right. 

* * * 

“Too much outside life destroys 
your college. Of course we all like 
to associate with our fellows, but 
don’t do it every night. The wife 
wants to enjoy the society of the hus¬ 
band and the husband the wife. Too 
much chasin’ around will bust up any 


26 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


college. If it is kept up you will have 
other instructors show up that you 
may not like, and will take your place. 

* * * 

“I can talk twice as long about this 
college, the biggest in the world. The 
w T orld is governed by the quality of 
the graduates turned out. It is up to 
the livin’ examples of the instructors 
to make the world better. If they 
pay attention to our instructions by 
teachin’ an example we have done our 
part. Libraries are filled with all 
kinds of books, to guide folks, but peo¬ 


ple won’t read them. What they want 
is livin’ examples. They want to see 
the real thing. There isn’t a single 
man or woman who ain’t a teacher in 
this biggest college in the world. You. 
don’t know what bunch of pupils are 
watchin’ you. They got bright eyes; 
they are great imitators. After while 
they chuck on a few extra additions 
of their own and thus the bad exam¬ 
ples are handed down from generation 
to generation. So don’t forget, we all 
are instructors in the biggest college 
in the world.’’ 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


27 ; 


ROOF BUILDIN’ 


You Should Put in Your Foundation Before You Tackle 

the Roof 


“I think some of the young folks 
are tryin’ to change the buildin’ laws, 
now days, and do somethin’ that can’t 
be did,” remarked Farmer John as he 
came into the office the other day 
\ and placed an enormous apple on my 
desk. 

* * * 

“Why, hello Farmer,’’ I replied. 
"What are the youngsters up to now? 
That’s a fine looking apple, did you 
raise it?” 

“That’s what, it took me many years 
to raise apples like that. It’s part 
of the roof of my house.” 

“Is the roof of your house made of 
apples? Isn’t that a peculiar kind of 
a roof,” I asked. 

“Not any more than the roof of 
yours; fer you’re the only one knows 

what’s in your roof. I know what I 
got in mine all right, and I got one 
that will pertect me and my family 
when the storms come and the winds 
blow.” 

“What have you got in your roof?” 
I asked curiously. 

* * * 

“Well, in the first place, I got good 
solid timbers, composed of good deeds, 
and shingles of industry and thrift. 
Everything I do and work fer is part 
of that roof. Fer what good is a 
house if the roof ain’t sound, one that 
the winds and storms won’t blow off. 
* * * 

“When we have friends a visitin’ 
we must have a good roof or they 
won’t come again. If it’s sound we 
have the laughter of contented folks 
who can look out of the winder, see 


the storms flyin’, the snows and winds 
howlin’, fer they all know the roof is 
on tight and the walls goin’ to hold. 
That’s the kind to pertect us from the 
storms of life.” 

* * * 

“You are theorising now,” I said. 

“Not much on that stuff, when the 
roof flies off and the rains and snows 
of adversity comes flyin’ on the top of 
your head; nothin’ to pertect you, all 
because you didn’t watch your roof.” 

“How does this apply to the young 
folks changing building laws?” r 
asked. 

“Because they’re goin’ to try to put 
the roof on before they git the houSe 
built or the foundation laid. 

* * * 

“There’s very few young folks got 
the idea to lay a foundation so they 
can get the roof on to stay when the 
time comes, one that will pertect them 
when they git old. Life is just like 
buildin’ a house. We can build any 
kind we want, but if we don’t git 
started right we won’t be able to lay 
a foundation; or if we do it’ll only 
hold the bummest kind of a shack and 
won’t even hold the roof.” 

* * * 

“How do you think we should start 
these young people right?” I asked. 

“Well, kids is kids. All kinds of 
kids is frisky, there’s no difference in 
them, so we got to begin early with, 
them before they can talk. We’re liv¬ 
in’ in a swift age, and kids know 
more than I did before I wuz their 
age. Most of them will have long 
gray whiskers before they tumble 
what first class fools they wuz tryin’" 
to do somethin’ God Almighty said 




28 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


couldn’t be done, and ignorin’ the 
tips us ‘hayseeds’ gave them, as they 
call us. 

* * * 

“I think I’ll get my kid, the one 
with the bulgin’ forehead, who has so 
many brains that her head is gettin’ 
pushed out of shape, to write a book 

and sell it to these boobs. After we 
git their money they’ll tell us how 
smart we wuz, but when I give them 
an earful now, free of charge, they 
give me the merry ha-ha and tell me 
I’m full of ‘bull.’ If the good Lord 
spares them long enough, some day 
they’ll be tellin’ other kids what first 
class chumps they wuz fer lettin’ the 
buildin’ age git past them. Then they’ll 
know how it feels to be told by a set 
of young galoots, who know nothin’ 
but smokin’ cigarettes, havin’ a good 
time, and chasin’ young girls they 
call ‘chickens,’ that they wuz slingin’ 
the ‘bull’ with a first class grip on its 
tail.” 

* * * 

‘It is a deplorable condition that 
many of our young folks will not 
listen to advice. How would you over¬ 
come it?” I asked. 

“This little story I’m goin’ to tell 
you will answer many of your ques¬ 
tions. A young feller, called Pete 
Newitall, had a fine farm given to 
him, beautiful to look at, with trees, 
meadows, brooks, lawns and stock, 
but had no house on it. As it wuz 
spring time he had all summer to 
build one, so he put up a temporary 
shelter to last fer awhile. 

* * * 

‘‘So Pete, bein’ a lively sort of a 
teller, invited his friends to live with 
him and have a good time. They had 
it—fishin’, huntin’ and the like, takin’ 
things easy. But every day brought 
him nearer the winter and all at once 
he knew he wuzn’t ready fer it. All 
his feed had run out and he had no 
more fer his stock, so one day he and 
his friends hitched up and went to find 
some. They drove a long way before 
they found any. They loaded up their 


bags with corn and started back, hav¬ 
in’ a good time all the way. 

* * * 

‘‘Pretty soon some one called from 
the roadside to him, ‘Say, you’re los- 
in’ your corn,’ but Pete told the fel¬ 
ler to mind his own business, and kept 
on singin’ and laughin’, havin’ a good 
time. Still further along, another 
shouted, ‘Oh, Pete, you’re losing your 
corn.’ Pete told him it wuz his corn 
and he could do as he liked with it. 
Then his friends butted in and told 
Pete nothin’ wuz wrong and to go 
ahead. 

is * * 

“More people called out ‘Your los- 
in’ your corn/ but he paid no atten¬ 
tion to them. When he got close to 
his farm he looked back. Then he 
found all his corn wuz lost, the bags 
had all busted. Follerin’ along back 
of him wuz a string of animals and 
fowls, eatin’ up the corn. When 
Pete’s friends seen this they gave 
Pete the laugh and left him. There he 
wuz, no corn, no friends, no house, 
nothin’ fer his stock and winter corn¬ 
in’ on. Pete wuz up against it.” 

* * * 

“What has that story got to do with 
the young folks?” I asked. 

“Much,” answered Farmer John. 
“Pete’s farm is nothin’ more nor less 
than his life. There it wuz, in the 
spring, right in front of him. He 
had his house to build, his sowin’ to 
do, and get ready fer the winter of 
old age. But all he wanted wuz a 
good time. When he had that he had 
lots of friends, but they left him when 
they couldn’t work him fer nothin’ 
more. He wuz feedin’ everything 
along the road, but his own had 
nothin’.” 

* * * 

“But he still had the farm?” I re¬ 
marked. 

“What good wuz that when he could¬ 
n’t work it and winter on him? He 
couldn’t raise anything; he had 
nothin’ fer his stock, which is the 
folks dependin’ on him fer a livin’. 
He had wasted his corn, scattered his 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


29 > 


resources along the road. He wuz 
warned, but paid no attention; fer all 
during the summer of life he wuz hav¬ 
in’ a good time. He wouldn’t listen, 
his friends amounted to nothin’, and 
so had nothin’ fer his old age. He 
hadn’t started his house so he could 
put the roof on. That’s our job to 
help the kids git started right.” 

* * * 

“Where does the trouble lay, in your 
opinion?” I asked. 

“We don’t give them responsibilities 
enough, too much play and not enough 
work. Everybody wants to help them 
along, but we’re overdom’ the thing. 
Kids should get as much learnin’ as 
possible. Pack it in, while the pack¬ 
in’ is good. Give them all the knowl¬ 
edge you can. Many of these youngs¬ 
ters tell what they are goin’ to do 
when they git big. They think when 
that time comes somethin’ out of the 
ordinary is goin’ to happen and they’ll 
git big all at once and they’ll be noti¬ 
fied. 

* * * 

“We know that gittin’ big, comes 
like the ripenin’ of fruit—gradually. 
That’s the reason why so many grown 
folks act like kids. The world is full 
of them, they haven’t got over their 
kitten age yet. It accounts fer the big 
crop of fools, which is growin’ big¬ 
ger every year. The big rush fer 
pleasure proves they haven’t built 
their house yet. Then again too 
many parents are lettin’ the kids git 
away from them; lettin’ someone else 
watch them, thinkin’ they will be look¬ 
ed after when they ain’t. So the kids 
don’t care, they know the parents ain’t, 
watchin’ them and they git wild. They 
don’t care fer home, usin’ it fer a 
place to eat and sleep in. 

“We must give the kids more pleas¬ 
ure at home and less outside. Make 
home their headquarters. Everything 
must come from there. Don’t let any¬ 
body wean the kids from the home. 
Get the kids acquainted with the par¬ 
ents and the parents with the kids. 
Too many shows, festivals and 


dances will make any youngster fer- 
git his home, and the influence is 

lost.” 

* * * 

“Then you don’t believe the chil¬ 
dren should have any pleasure?” I 

asked. 

“I certainly do. When I sow my 
seed in the spring I got to hoe it 
to keep the weeds down, if I want to 
have any kind of a crop. When the 
good Lord sends rain, I can’t work, 
so I take my pleasure. That means 
there is a proper time fer everything. 
When the rain stops I must work 
again to kill the weeds, and that’s 
just the way with kids. Too much 
pleasure is like lettin’ the weeds grow 
after the rain and if we don’t watch 
out our house buildin’ will be stopped 
and the winter is on us before we 
know it. 

“Kids have pride and like to brag 
about what they have. If the parents 
don’t pay any attention to the home 
the kids will go somewhere else. I 
think it is a fine thing fer parents to 
make the home headquarters for the 
kids instead of some club. Bein’ out 
every night, too much society and 
club life will kill any home. If the 
parents start to put the roof on their 
house, the kids will do the same when 
the time comes.” 

* * * 

“I suppose you have heard of the 
saying ‘Spare the rod and spoil the 
child.’ What do you think of that?” 

“I don’t believe in whalin’ children, 
just because they done somethin’ 
wrong, and poundin’ the liver out of 
them. They should be punished and 
made to feel they have done wrong, 
but it can be done by denyin’ them 
pleasures, which they feel more than 
sluggin’ them with a club. Too much 
trouble is discovered when it is too 
late and the weeds have started to 
grow. Folks love kids as a rule and 
will do anything fer them to make 
them happy. They will take advan¬ 
tage of this if we don’t watch them. 

* * * 

“When they git too fresh and begin 
to sass us when there ain’t no need 


30 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


fer it, it’s another evidence that some¬ 
thin’ should be attended to right away. 
We must git after it. It’s a hard 
job to convince some kids who is boss, 
after they have had their way, and if 
we don’t rule them they will us. If 
they do that we git in all kinds of 
trouble. Life should be a part of a 
child’s education, just as much as the 
A B C’s, but it looks to me as if it 
wuz given the go by. We let the 
kid find out fer himself and then he 
thinks he is it. So to get him started 
in the roofin’ business we got to git 
him right and show him by example 
how it’s done and this is mighty par¬ 
ticular. 


“If we want the kids to do right we 
got to do right ourselves, live decent¬ 
ly, respectin’ those who are older 
than we are; we gain by their experi¬ 
ence. We must play the game square 
and be honest with everybody. Obey 
the laws, so when the kids come to 
our stage of life they can take our 
places and be an honor to us, our 
country and our God. They will have 
put up a buildin’ with a roof on it 
that will pertect them when the win¬ 
try blasts of age blows and they’ll 
thank the good Lord they wuz started 
right by us lookin’ after them and we 
dodged no responsibility to make them 
honest, upright men and women.” 





FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


31 


KISSIN’ 


“Kissin’ is Gettin’ to be as Common as Two Dogs Rubbin’ 

Noses on the Street” 


“The more I think of this idee of 
kissin’ everybody and everything at 
-any old time, the more I think folks 
are makin’ their faces an exchange 
station fer all kinds of germs, odors 
and spits, that ain’t encouragin’ to 
good health or increasin’ the value of 
the kiss as a mark of true affection, 
which should be sacred to every per¬ 
son who draws the breath of life,” re¬ 
marked Farmer John on his weekly 
call at my office for his usual chat. 
“This kissin’ stunt is gettin’ to be 
as common as two dogs rubbin’ noses 
on the street.’' 

As usual when the Farmer starts 
off to give his ideas on any subject 
he either makes an assertion or asks 
a question that is hard to reply to, 
so to play safe I asked him “If he 
thought that showing affection to chil¬ 
dren by kissing them was wrong?” 

“That just depends,” he answered. 
“Suppose you wuz callin’ on a friend 
and he had a sweet little baby there, 
one you can’t help lovin’. Naturally 
you want to take that innocent chunk 
of babyhood in your arms and love it 
just as hard as you can. Now as a 
comparison, suppose you invited a 
friend to call with you on a dear 
young lady you wuz engage to. There 
she wuz, all fixed up, beautiful eyes, 
pertty face, lookin’ just like an an¬ 
gel and your friend seein’ how pretty 
she wuz, would take her in his arms 
and kiss her. What would you do? 
Say, boy, somethin’ would come up in 
your heart, bigger than a watermelon 
and risin* to your throat would mighty 
near choke you to death. Inside of 
a very few minutes you would have 
somethin’ to say privately to your 
friend fer participatin’ in osculatin’ 
exercises without bein’ invited.” 


“But kissin’ children isn’t like kiss¬ 
ing one's fiancee,” I answered. 

“Why ain’t it? You ain’t got any 
more right to slobber over that inno¬ 
cent kid any more’n your friend has 
over the lady. That baby couldn’t 
help itself any more than your girl 
could. Then agin, you don’t know 
what damage your goin’ to do. It 
might be too the father or mother 
would insist that the baby puts up 
its dear little innocent face at their 
orders and you take advantage of it 
and start to love it and kiss it. It 
don’t make any difference to you 
whether your mouth is clean or your 
breath is sweet, and your teeth scrub¬ 
bed. You don’t care, fer it’s bigger 
fun fer you if the kid kicks and strug¬ 
gles, fer then you hold it tighter and 
takin’ advantage of your strength, 
you proceed with your program. Is 
that right? 

* * * 

“Certainly we love the kids, fer if 
we don’t we ain’t human. Now here 
is the baby, lovin’ its parents, just 
like we all do, specially when we’re 
young. Along comes someone who 
wants to kiss it. After they leave 
that baby they never think of it again 
and you, not investigatin’ yourself, not 
bein’ sure your condition is right and 
that you ain’t lookin’, smellin’ or feel- 
in’ like a garbage plant; you want 
to stick that combination up against 
innocent childhood. It ain’t no won¬ 
der the baby yells.” 

* * * 

“I hope you don’t think I am that 
way?” I asked. “Of course it isn’t 
right.” 

“I ain’t saying you’re like that,” 
cam© back the Farmer,” but you no¬ 
tice the average folks and I’ll bet 




32 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


they got some of those conditions 
about them. But I only say this to 
make you think a little. Why I seen 
people make their kids kiss folks who 
wuz loaded up on limberger cheese, 
chewed tobacco, teeth covered with 
dirty lookin’ moss and besides had 
drunk several slugs of hootch, spank 
the baby fer not kissin’ that conglom¬ 
eration. Wihy that kid had no show. 
Why I’ll bet if anybody insisted you 
had to kiss that you’d be up fer mur¬ 
der. So the kid bein’ outnumbered 
and outsized had to take its punish¬ 
ment at either one end or the other; 
so it takes the easiest, it’s over 
quicker. 

* * * 

“Now what does this do after 
awhile. The baby will get used to 
these conditions and would kiss a de¬ 
composed monkey, if ordered to. Par¬ 
ents to my mind should not order chil¬ 
dren to kiss everything that comes 
along; any more than you would if 
some one put a shot gun to your head 
and make you rub noses with a hog 
that’s just been wollerin’ in slop. You 
know as well as me that there’s lots 
of hogs cleaner than many human 
bein’s that want to kiss, babies. 

* * * 

“This promiscuous kissin’ grows on 
kids and as they git older their face 
is always turned up fer someone to 
tackle. It breaks down the innocence 
of childhood. Breaks down the great 
bars of morality. It makes their faces 
a playground fer anyone who wants 
to muggle it. Fer what is sweeter 
than the kiss of true affection. To 
those who give or receive it, it won’t 
be forgotten. But if those lips are 
polluted with the kisses of everyone 
who comes along they will mean 
nothin’ but emblems of deceit. 

* * * 

“Keep the lips of childhood pure 
and clean. Let the kid have some¬ 
thing to say to whom it’s kisses shall 
be given. Don’t allow it or make the 
baby kiss everyone it comes in con¬ 
tact with. Teach it those kisses are 
precious as diamonds and when they 
git older they will only be given to 


those who are entitled to receive 
them. Besides it might save the par¬ 
ents many doctor’s bills in gettin’ rid 
of collections of germs that has been 
shoved in the baby’s face free of 
charge by these osculators, who make 
a play fer the kids, but don’t dare 
tackle anybody their size. 

* * * 

“There are all kinds of kisses given 
in this world, and in most cases repre¬ 
sent deceit. This is a pretty hard 
claim, but think it over and note if 
Pm wrong. You have seen women 
kiss each other every time they meet 
and after they separate proceed to 
criticize and roast the very one they 
have given such a display of affec¬ 
tion. Those kind of kisses are just 
like the ones that Judas gave Christ, 
fer they are killin’ their friends by 
breakin’ down their character, just 
as bad as any robber who lays fer 
us at night. In fact worse, fer the 
robber can spend the money he gits, 
from us, but the one who steals our 
character can’t use it in no way. 

* * * 

“Now when the young fellers go 
callin’ on the girls. Attracted to each 
other they git in the parlor and after 
a time, it may not be that night but 
some other one, they start to kiss. 
Now that young girl don’t know how 
many other girls that feller kissed. 
Nor neither does the young man know 
how many other boys that girl kissed. 
So he sizes it up by just findin’ out 
how easy it wuz to git the first kiss. 
Now don’t you think the girl is playin’ 
safe when she refuses to let him glue 
his lips to hers and keep that kiss 
sacred to the time they have given 
each other their hearts and then that 
kiss will never be forgotten. 

“Then on the other hand if the girl 
allows him to do it without any pro¬ 
test you can be sure the girl will lose 
out, fer the feller will think the girl 
is easy and kissin’ every young man 
that comes around and she is makin’ 
her face a parkin’ place fer her gen¬ 
tlemen friends. There is many of 
this kind of fellers in this world. Let 
\ny girl act like this and it won’t 



FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


33 


be very long until this feller’s chums 
knows all about it, consequently they 
dodge her as if she had smallpox. 

* * * 

“These kind of girls don’t know 
the mothers of these boys are watch- 
in’ them, because lovin’ the boy they 
think everything he does is just right 
and he never does anything wrong. 
So they will tell him all about the 
girl, her faults, who she entertains 
and the girl suffers because she can’t 
satisfy the mama. So you see this 
promiscuous kissin’ don’t do the girl 
any good. It has a back kick, just 
like my old mule when I got in the 
range of it’s hoofs and like the girl, 
I don’t know it until I got it. But 
it wuz my own fault, because I wuz 
warned about the mule, so warn the 
girls about this kissin’ business. 

* * * 

“You might think I don’t want the 
young folks to have any fun, but I 
do, fer there is lots of ways of en¬ 
joyin’ yourselves. It would take me 
a week to tell you about how boys and 
girls enjoy each other’s company that 
hunt fer it. You can’t keep them 
apart any more than I can leave the 
back of my head at home when I go 
out walkin’. But in these pleasures 
of youth they should be taught not 
to do anything that will affect their 
after life and promiscuous kissin’ is 
one of the things that will do it. Now 
I know this, fer years ago I tried to 
kiss a girl when she told me to stop. 
I didn’t and consequently nearly got 
my teeth broke. To day she is one 
of my most respected friends. 

* * * 

“What is more affectin’ than seein’ 
the great big man, after bein’ away 
from home fer years, cornin’ back to 
the old folks, gather them in his arms, 
kissin’ them, lovin’ them, speakin’ in 
words of endearment. Why if we see 
that and it don’t affect us we ain’t 
got any more feelin’s than a brass 
monkey; we have lost the power of 
love. Why I’ve seen wives and hus¬ 


bands part, separated by business, 
when they met again they didn’t care 
who seen them rush into each other’s 
arms. Then again I’ve seen other 
married folks be so glad they wuz rid 
of each other when they got loose 
fer awhile, they would act like crazy 
people. Some reason fer that. 

* * * 

“They got fooled, which one done 
it we don’t know, but a screw got 
loose in their household machinery 
somewhere; it wuzn’t tightened up so 
it went to smash. No doubt it wuz 
a little wiggly when they wuz first 
married and it got workin’ looser and 
looser each day. In a great number 
of cases this trouble comes from this 
same promiscuous kissin’ that wuz 
done before they got hitched up. Then 
jealousy got in, then the don’t-care 
spirit, next they got stayin’ away from 
home, then the kissin’ disease broke 
out and was practiced outside of the 
home. Hence the joy of separatin’. 
They planted their kisses where they 
shouldn’t on somebody’s lips outside 
of the family. If you don’t believe 
this, look up some of these cases and 
find out. There wouldn’t be so many 
divorce cases if husbands or wives 
kept their kisses fer themselves, and 
not pass them ’round like a free lunch 
at a brewer’s picnic. 

* * * 

“No child, girl, wife, mother or any¬ 
body else wants to kiss lips that are 
soaked with tobacco juice, a breath 
that would rival a first class shindery 
or bump up against an odor from your 
person that would remind one of a 
skunk. Neither do they want kisses 
that are passed out like handbills at 
a circus. They want to 'feel that 
those kisses are private property and 
not transferable. Money can’t buy 
them, just like the love that is in their 
hearts. When we all realize this we 
will live in a happier world, increase 
our love for our families and have a 
better and warmer feelin’ fer the folks 
at large.” 


34 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


DOES THE WORLD OWE US A LIVING? 


Bill Jones Declared it Did and He Wuz Goin’ to Get Every¬ 
thing That Wuz a Cornin’ to Him and He Will 


As Farmer John stepped into our 
office this week he remarked: 

“The other day I hearn a feller, we 
will call him Bill Jones an’ there are 
lots of Bill Jones’s in this world, say, 
he did not asked to be borned, it wuz 
not his fault he wuz a livin; he had 
nothin’ to do with it, an’ the worl’ 
owed him a livin’ an’ he wuz goin’ to 
git everything that wuz a cornin’ to 
him an’ wuz goin’ to miss nothin’ if 
he could help it. 

“Now when Bill got this speech of- 
fen his chest the gang that hearn him 
wildly cheered an’ told him how smart 
he wuz an’ he ought to have a soft 
easy job as he had so many brains. 
Then you ought to see Bill. He puffed 
up like a poutin pidgeon an’ strutted 
around like a hen peacock, because no 
one answered him back. 

* * * 

“Now do you think Bill wuz smart 
an’ said somethin’ clever, or wuz he 
talkin’ foolish. We can’t call him an 
idiot, because we lock them kind up 
so they can’t do any damage, but Bill 
wuz loose. So talkin’ like this he 
mus’ come in the fool class. 

“Why when Bill let loose this bunch 
of steam, the kind that goes through 
a whistle an’ makes a noise an’ when 
it fades you can’t even find the vapor, 
an’ that’s about all people like Bill 
Jones does, make a noise. Not the 
kind that soothes, but one that makes 
us tired an’ we want to muzzle him. 
'You see Bill puts in his time smokin’ 
^cigarettes an’ between puffs gets off 
wise sayin’s like this. Gettin’ short 
of wind, he puts in a few minutes 
every day lookin’ for work, an’ then 


dodges it. Bill can dodge more jobs 
than a fox can dodge a bunch of 
hounds, an’ the only excuse he can 
find for loafin’ is ‘The world owes him 
a livin’.’ 

* * * 

“Now I’m goin’ to ask Bill how the 
world ever got in his debt that it has 
got to keep him from starvin! What 
good did he ever do the world, that 
we all have to chip in an’ help pay 
his board bill. The world had nothin’ 
to do with Bill bein’ borned either, 
so he mustn’t pass the buck to us am 
demand we should keep a strong, heal¬ 
thy person like him in clothes an’ 
smokes. 

“An’ agin, Bill says he ain’t goin’ 
to miss nothin’, an’ is goin’ to git 
everything that’s cornin’ to him. 

“He’ll git everything that’s cornin’ 
to him alright. I feel real sorry for 
Bill. No one wants everything that’s 
cornin’ to him; for if we got it there 
would be lots of funerals goin’ on right 
now an’ the undertakers would be 
workin’ overtime. 

* * * 

“Bill’s remarks won’t make people 
shiver, an’ hunt their holes. No siree, 
they will give him the laugh an’ call 
him a nut, for he has showed less 
brains than the animal which sneaks 
around pokin’ its nose in garbage 
pails for somethin’ to eat, any ol’ bone 
will do. Jus’ so with Bill, he goes 
snoutin’ around for work an’ all he 
can find is somethin’ no one else would 
have, or throwed away. 

“My advice to Bill is; Don’t you try 
to collect those debts you claim. This 
ol’ world has a funny way in payin’ 
its bills an’ when time rolls on Bill 
will be paid in full, with interest add¬ 
ed in a way he did not figure on. 




PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


35 


This ol’ world is square with every¬ 
body an’ will pay back jus’ the same 
kind of a crop we sowed, when the 
harvest comes, whether it be good or 
bad, an’ Bill can’t dodge it'either. 

* * * 

’’Why, this is a wonderful earth 
we’re livin’ in. It took our Great Crea¬ 
tor six long ages to make it, look 
around an’ see how grand it is, the 
sun, moon, stars, mountains, valleys, 
trees, grass, herbs, flowers, rivers, 
lakes an’ oceans, fish, animals an’ 
birds. Then when everything wuz 
ready, God made Adam an’ Eve right 
out of the dust of the earth, to enjoy 
it. This whole earth wuz presented 
to ’em as a gift, free of charge, to 
live on. 

“Jus’ think what a present that wuz. 
God Almighty after workin’ six long 
ages, full of everything we need, noth¬ 
in’ missin’, an’ give it to a bunch of 
people we turned out to be. Why this 
work wuz so glorious that even the 
angels sang an’ the heavens rang 
with music an’ joy. 

* * ^ 

“Now when Adam wuz put here did 
you ever hear of Adam kickin’ because 
he wuz not consulted when he wuz 
made out of dirt? an’ givin’ life an’ 
this wonderful earth so he could en¬ 
joy it? Nothin’ to it, Adam praised 
the good Lord because he wuz made 
out of dust, so he could enjoy this 
wonderful gift. Now I want to ask 
Bill: If he is any greater than Adam? 
•or wuz anybody asked whether they 
wanted to be put on this earth. Now 
if nobody wuz. Why should Bill’s 
bunch of mud be asked whether it 
should be made into Bill Jones or not? 
What made Bill’s dust any better than 
any one elses! Adam wuz given eyes 
to see an’ a mouth to praise God 
Almighty for bein’ born an’ for the 
wonderful gift, but unlike Adam, Bill 
is questionin’ the right of the Great 
Creator to make him out of mud an’ 
put him on this earth, a livin’ soul. 

“Now if Bill had any objections why 
didn’t he kick when he wuz still mud, 
an’ not wait until he wuz a livin’ soul, 
after the work wuz done. Now if he’d 


done that we might all be walkin’ 
over Bill right now an’ some of his 
mud be stickin’ to our shoes. If Bill 
thinks people are walkin’ on him he 
must be still mud an’ not grasped the 
idee that he is a livin’ soul. 

* * * 

“Now Adam wuz givin’ this earth to 
live on jus’ as long as he behaved him¬ 
self an’ did not take a bite out of a 
certain fruit that grew in the garden. 
But Adam an’ Eve, jus’ like Bill, got 
bigger than their Creator an’ bit. Then 
Adam got all that wuz a cornin’ to 
him. He didn’t realize that the in¬ 
ventor of a machine knowed more 
about it than some one that tinkers 
with it. 

Adam wuz chased out of the beauti¬ 
ful garden, his easy days wuz over, an’ 
he had to sweat an’ toil for a livin’ 
puttin’ in his time plantin’, reapin’ 
spinnin’, makin’ clothes an’ buildin’ 

houses the rest of his days. 01’ Moth¬ 
er Earth gave him a good livin. When 
he went after it an’ hustled, but he 
went shy, if he loafed. 

“Adam had to fight bugs an’ worms 
an’ thorns an’ all that to get his crops. 
If Bill Jones had lived those days, an’ 
havin’ the same feelin’s he has now, 
he would a been up against it real 
hard an’ been the original walkin’ 

skeleton. Adam didn’t say the world 
owed him a livin’, an’ wanted every¬ 
thing that wuz a cornin’ to him either. 
He got enough, an’ so will Bill. 

* * * 

“This earth wuz perfect, an’ the 

Good Lord loved it an’ everybody on 
it. He done every thing possible to 
have them live forever on it. but when 
man tried to improve perfection, sin 
entered an’ trouble started. It has 
been goin’ on ever since; consequent¬ 
ly we’re all gettin’ all that’s cornin’ 
to us. We are missin’ nothin’. Every 
man, woman an’ child is a part of this 
great work an’ put here for a purpose. 
Every one of us wuz picked out; if 
we wuzn’t we never would a been 
borned. 

So what right have w~e got to growfi 
an’ kick because we wuz born an’ had 
such a great honor given to us. Made 



36 


FARMER JOHN'S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


out of dust, given life, eyes to see 
ears to hear, nose to smell, mouth to 
speak. Think of it, a chunk of dust 
made a livin’ soul. It is our duty to 
work an’ enjoy this earth, an’ give 
honor an’ glory an’ praise to our Great 
Creator because we are a part of this 
wonderful creation. 

* * * 

“I am glad I wuz borned an’ become 
a livin’ soul, for when I read the Bible, 
which is the only guide we have, it 
says to me, “Farmer John, you wuz 
created out of dust an’ given life an’ 
if you behave yourself, love God Al¬ 
mighty, an’ your fellow men; do your 
duty, you will be raised from the dead 
an’ be given life without end. Another 
wonderful gift that’s a cornin’ to us 
later. 

“But if we’re goin’ to be like Bill 
Jones, questionin’ the right of God 
to put him on this earth an’ yowls, 
‘The world owes him a livin’,’ when 
all he has to do is to hustle around 
an’ git it, right under his nose, an’ 
then demands all that’s cornin’ to him. 
Bill had better git right off this earth, 
because he won’t do himself or any¬ 
body else any good; for there is no 
room for him or people like him in 
this world or the next. 

* * * 

“It’s cowardly for anybody to try 
an’ blame God Almighty for having 
bad luck, with all the chances we have 
of makin’ good. With all the schools 
an’ societies fairly itchin’ to show Bill 
an’ that kind of people how to make 
a good livin’, but all he does is dodge 
them. I think Bill’s notion is that he 
ought to be borned with a college edu¬ 
cation, with a cigarette in his mouth 
an’ some one standin’ by with a match 
ready to light it for him. 

“Just think, he don’t appreciate he 
wuz made out of dust, given life, an’ 
then by an indescribable sacrifice by 
the Son of God wuz given the right of 
eternal life if he acted right. What 
more do people like Bill Jones want. 
If he don’t want this gift he don’t need 
tp take it. Our Good Lord isn’t goin’ 
to force it on him. 


“Now folks, don’t be like Bill Jones, 
who wuz created for the very same 
purpose Adam wuz. If he wuzn’t, an’ 
has been excused by our Creator, he 
can get the easiest an’ softest job he 
ever had, doin’ nothin’ but drawin’ his 
breath an’ his salary, siftin’ on a 
platform in a museum, lettin’ people 
look at him. 

* * * 

“This world owes no person a liv¬ 
in’. Why if we only plant a few seeds 
an’ look after them we will get from 
10 to 100 times more than we planted. 
This ol’ world is good to those who 
work an’ are thrifty, but seeds like 
the mind must be attended to, for if 
we don’t watch them they will become 
choked with weeds an’ other things 
an’ stop producin’. That’s what’s the 
matter with Bill’s brains; choked with 
weeds an’ cigarettes, an’ it won’t 
work, it needs fertilizin’ in the shape 
of the Bible to make it right. 

“The trouble is that these fellows- 
who are claimin’ the world owes them 
a livin’ didn’t start right when they 
wuz young. As I said, they are dodg¬ 
ers, an’ dodged school an’ everything 
else. They put in their time goin’ to 
shows, dances an’ smokin’ cigarettes 
an’ wouldn’t study. They don’t, know 
enough to hold a job an’ they are al¬ 
ways loafin’ They bum in poolrooms, 
an’ other places, when they should be 
gettin’ ready to fill good jobs an’ when 
one shows up it passes them like a 
streak of lightnin’ because they ain’t 
ready for it. Then they git mixed up 
in bad company. Then the world will 
start to pay Bill back what is owed 
him an’ it comes with interest as 
time rolls on. 

* * * 

“Fellows like Bilil can orate like fury;, 
they always do everything jus’ right. 
Solomon wuz not in it with him for 
wisdom, but still they can’t make a 
livin’. To square themselves they try 
to convince people the world owes it 
to them, claimin’ they wuz not con¬ 
sulted before they wuz borned. Is 
these fellows men? Adam wuz, be¬ 
cause the Bible says so, an’ he didn’t. 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


37 


make speeches like Bill Jones. Of 
course humanity went backward since 
that time, but we can’t call Bill a 
man or he wouldn’t talk that way. 
There is as much sense in his talk as 
in monkey gibberish, an’ of course a 
monkey is no man. 

* * * 

“I guess I said enough. When we 
meet these Bill Joneses, don’t listen 
to them, only pity them. Something 
is wrong with their heads, they’ll 


know someday how wrong they were 
an’ how they got in dutch but let us 
hope it will not be too late. In the 
meantime we must not forget our duty 
an’ what we were put on this earth 
for. To thank an’ praise God Al¬ 
mighty because we were put on this 
earth, made out of dust, a part of this 
great work, given life an’, if faithful, 
given a chance to live throughout 
eternity in a wonderful creation, by a 
wonderful love.” 





38 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


RIGHTS VS. BOOZE 

“Which is the Worst,” Says Farmer John, “the Gang That 
Prays for Seventy-five Years Against Booze or the 
Gang That Broke Every Known Law” 


“No sirree, the rights you got, you¬ 
’ve dumped in the ash can, discarded 
them and like a blind mule, brayin’ 
fer feed when its right under its nose, 
you’re still shoutin’ fer rights.” I 
heard Farmer John say, as I walked 
over to the crowd to investigate and 
found Farmer John, and the Hon. Bill 
Howler holding an open forum discus¬ 
sion, much to the delight of a large 
crowd of listeners, one of whom told 
me the Hon. Bill had been insisting 
his rights had been taken away when 
the 18th Amendment was adopted and 
was reciting his troubles when the 
Farmer heard him and took up the 
battle. 

* * * 

“What rights have I thrown away?” 
demanded the Hon. Bill. “Me throw 
away my rights or vote away some 
one else’s. Why I’d sooner pluck out 
my right eye.” 

“Oh, you would, would you,” retort¬ 
ed the Farmer. “Then you’d better 
start your pluckin’ right away; you 
preachin’ about rights, then askin’ me 
what they are, when all you’re think- 
in’ about is liquor, so you and other 
folks can git drunk, so you can use 
their brains and can work them easier. 
Now you’re posin’ as a sufferin’ martyr 
and tryin’ to convince others they’re 
abused and convert folks to violate 
our constitution and our laws.” 

* * * 

“I insist you tell me what rights I’ve 
thrown away,” demanded the Hon. 
Bill. 

“You’ve got the right to act decent 
and show other folks how to do it. 


Are you doin’ it? You’ve got the right 
to uphold the constitution of the Uni¬ 
ted States. Are you doin’ that? You 
got the right to worship God almighty 
and do your part to help clean up this 
earth and wipe out one of the great¬ 
est curses that ever struck it. Are 
you doin’ it? You got the right to 
help your weak friend and take away 
the stuff that has broken up his fam¬ 
ily, caused sufferin’ to his wife and 
children. Are you doin’ it? You got 
the right to insist that we do away 
with the gangs that’s breakin’ our 
laws and respects neither God, man or 
the devil. Are you doin’ it? Any other 
rights you want to know about?’’ in¬ 
quired the Farmer. 

* * * 

“I know I got those privileges,” 
answered the Hon. Bill, “and I ap¬ 
preciate them, but I contend that 
there is no set of men can take away 
the God-given right to take a drink 
whenever I want it.” 

“You call those things I told you 
about privileges, do you? replied the 
Farmer. You got the idee of rights 
and privileges mixed up. God al¬ 
mighty never gave you the right to 
booze, fer He warns your against it, 
but its our government that gave you 
the privilege of boozin’, until it wuz 
voted out. Rights is something we 
must do and privileges we can do or 
not just as we choose. The drink that 
God gives me to drink comes out of 
my pump and it gives me health and 
strength, but the stuff you’re tryin’ to 
convince folks that God gave you the 
right to drink and pour into your hide, 
injures you, your family, puts inno¬ 
cent children into untimely graves or 
curses them until the third generation. 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


39 


accordin’ to the Bible. This govern¬ 
ment has the right to pertect the 
kids, so if men won’t pertect himself 
and the babies, then our government’s 
got to do it.” 

* * * 

“This is a free government,” pro¬ 
claimed the Hon. Bill, “and I insist 1 
have a right as a voter to express my 
opinion, whether this country should 
vote out my right to take a glass of 
beer or not. Your fanatical gang took 
advantage of us and after spending 
millions of money deprived us of the 
privileges we have enjoyed since we 
were knee high to a duck. Now what 
have you to say?” 

* * * 

“Say, look here,” began the Farmer, 
“you’ve given me a half dozen ques¬ 
tions all mashed into one, so I will 
take them apart and let’s see where 
you land. You talk about a fanatical 
gang. Why man alive, if we didn’t 
have any gang like that in this coun¬ 
try right now we would have no coun¬ 
try. Fer over 75 years this gang has 
been workin’, prayin’ and speechify- 
in’ agin booze. We got all kinds of 
laws passed. Then your gang of law 
breakers got out their hammers and 
started smashin’ them. License fees 
wuz raised; your gang howled, but 
paid them just the same and startin’ 
more saloons. You kept on dishin’ 
out booze when we had a regular 
stack of laws made tryin’ to make you 
fellers be good, and the more we tried, 
the worse you acted. Your bunch wuz 
like a set of hungry dogs, all lickin’ 
their chops to bust more laws. 

* * * 

“Look at the millions you fellers 
spent, dodgin’ laws. So our gang got 
together, chipped in our money and 
then did some tall prayin’ to God al¬ 
mighty to lead us like the children of 

Israel when they wuz wanderin’ 

through the desert, fer we wuz floun¬ 
derin’ through the desert of sorrow 
and sufferin’ caused by booze. And 

He done it. Say, which gang wuz 
the worst, the one that prayed or your 
gang that broke up homes, violated all 


our laws and put a curse on every¬ 
thing? 

* * * 

“You say this is a free country. 
Why it ain’t any more free than it 
wuz 150 years ago, when the folks 
had to pertect themselves agin wild 
beasts and savages. So today we got 
to pertect ourselves agin the wild 
beasts of your crowd, that will sneak 
in and destroy us, and you’re doin’ it 
right now. We got more privileges in 
this country than any other, and your 
dirty bunch is takin’ advantage of it 
and our crowd is gittin’ the tail end 
of the deal. You folks have forgotten 
your responsibilities, fer they are not 
rights. If you want to find out how 
many rights you got, just consult the 
Bible, fer you can write them on the 
back of a postage stamp and still 
have room fer the address. We are 
responsible fer the safety of others 
and they fer us, and if we do these 
responsibilities right, we’ll be kept 
busy. We are all free, so long as we 
don’t infringe on the life, liberty and 
happiness of others.” 

* * * 

“See here,” interrupted the Hon. 
Bill. 

“Just wait till I git through,” insist¬ 
ed the Farmer, “you asked me a lot 
of questions and I’m goin’ to answer 
them. You said we took advantage of 
you, and when you wuzn’t lookin’ 
shoved the law through. Why we took 
about as much advantage of you as 
David did over Goliah. We trusted in 
God almighty and we certainly did 
soak you one between the eyes and 
right when you wuz lookin’ too. Why, 
man alive, you read the papers. After 
our 75 years of workin’ and prayin’, 
durin’ which time you gave us the 
merry ha-ha, Congress woke up. I 
think our good Lord gave them a prod 
with somethin’, so it gave the States 
seven years to pass the amendment. 

* * * 

“Didn’t you fellers have a jubilee, 
how you laughed and did the snake 
dance, just like Goliah roared when 
he seen little David. You vowed it 
couldn’t be done. So after layin’ quiet 




40 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


fer nearly two years somethin’ hap¬ 
pened, fer you fellers forgot all about 
God almighty and you got it worse 
than him, and your giant wuz bigger 
too and you wuzn’t hit with a stone, 
but got soaked with little wads of 
paper with writin’ on them. God al¬ 
mighty got tired seein’ little babies 
He sent to this earth, sufferin’ and 
dyin’. We won because we had God 
on our side, and you had the devil, 
with a long string of graves back of 
him. How much money you spent, the 
good Lord only knows fer you kept 
your figures quiet.” 

* * * 

‘‘See here,” again interrupted the 
Hon’ Bill. 

“Just you wait a minute. I’m hold- 
in’ the floor answerin’ your questions,” 
insisted the Farmer. “You told us 
you had booze since you wuz knee 
high to a duck. I’m glad you said it, 
fer it shows how you booze fellers 
will reach into the cradle to git even 
with the babies, when the law says 
we must not give kids booze. But 
you do it just the same. Why no¬ 
body but a regular devil would de¬ 
liberately take a little innocent kid 
and ruin them by fillin’ them full of 
booze, fer booze is full of little devils. 
Drink enough of it and you’ll see 
them alright and if you swallow them, 
they will git their work in alright. 
You can’t dodge them, they will come 
out somehow.” 

* * * 

“You are quoting the Bible so 
much,” said the Hon. Bill.” Proba¬ 
bly you have forgotten that Christ 
turned water into wine, so the wedding 
guests could enjoy themselves, and 
now you preach that wine should not 
be used. So if Christ gave them wine 
to drink, why should you people take 
it away from us.” 

“You are right, in that,” said Farmer 
John, “the good Lord did turn water 
into wine fer folks at Cana and if He 
wuz here I’d enjoy drinkin’ the wine 
He made. Is the wine you fellers 
shove out made out of water? Nothin’ 
to it, you can’t do it, fer the stuff you 
want folks to drink is made out of 


poison, that will eat the very life of 
those you sell it to. 

“But I never could understand how 
you gang elected Jesus Christ as a 
member of your boozer’s association 
and if you done it I’m glad to hear 
it, fer if any gang needs reformin’, 
that mob of bartenders, bootleggers, 
thugs and so forth, does. So if Christ 
is among you, we can look fer big 
changes shortly and you’ll be runnin’ 
up the white flag surrenderin’ to us. 
* * * 

“When it comes to advocatin’ the 
idee that we should guzzle, swim and 
wade in booze, because Christ, in His 
wonderful love and mercy, made good 
wine at that feast, and comparin’ it 
with the wine and booze made by 
man and tempered and monkeyed with 
by the very devil himself, a rank imi¬ 
tation of what Christ has done, we 
can only expect misery, dispair and 
death to those who drink it. Christ’s 
wine never broke up homes, ruined 
kids and caused sufferin’. Christ died 
that we might live, but that booze 
you crave so much fer and claim your 
rights has been takin’ away because 
you can’t keep on passin’ out this 
liquid death, fixes folks so they can’t 
accept that w T onderful sacrifice.” 

* * * 

“In spite of what you say, a little 
wine won’t hurt anybody,” said the 
Hon. Bill. 

“You fellers are always talkin’ about 
a little wine,” replied the Farmer. 
“Say, I’d like to see you satisfied with 
a little. You start your recruits with 
a little, then it grows and grows, and 
later take it by the tank. You never 
seen any persons yet who started, 
think they wuz goin’ to be a drunk¬ 
ard. They think they are goin’ to 
fool the devil, but when the tussle is 
over, they know the devil’s got them, 
so you are foolin’ yourselves. 

* * * 

“If you boozers only took a little 
your saloons might be existin’ today. 
The back rooms of those places would 
not have been filled with young boys 
and girls, enticed there to git their 
money, and end up in ruinin’ their 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


41 


lives. Young men just vergin’ into 
manhood, made bums and outcasts, 
young girls with the innocence of 
youth and maidenly beauty, utterly 
destroyed. Your gang has reached 
into every home in this country and 
mercilessly destroyed relatives and 
friends. Now you’re howlin’ how good 
booze is; clothin’ it with a cloak of 
righteousness. Why your entire gang 
is actin’ like missionaries from Satan 
himself, to populate hell, makin’ our 
folks fergit God, country and home, 
and if wuzn’t fer our gang, that done 
the prayin’, you’d won out.” 

* * * 

“Look at the number of law-break¬ 
ers this law is making,’’ said the Hon. 
Bill. “Our jails are getting jammed 
with them.” 

“This law ain’t makin’ any more 
than they were,” retorted the Farm¬ 
er, “fer they are just gittin’ showed 
up and bein’ caught at it. Why you 
fellers have the best press agents in 
the world, fer the devil likes to make 
lots of noise when he wants to upset 
things, and you are lettin’ him show 
his hand, fer you are invitin’ the un¬ 
dertaker when you hit the booze now. 
The hoofed gent can’t hide when God 
Almighty takes a whirl at it, and this 
booze question is doin’ it, fer he is 
tryin’ to destroy our young folks, our 
government and our families and he 
will make your toes tickle the roots 
of the daisies if you don’t let up. 

He * * 

“Are we goin’ to let the devil make 
liars and hypocrites out of us? We 
all swore to stand by our great con¬ 
stitution, and he’s got such a holt on 
some of us that we’re reniggin’. Why 
most of you fellers that yell fer 
booze say you can let it alone. Why 
don’t they. They let themselves down 
easy by sayin’ they only want a lit¬ 
tle. They got the disease alright, 
just like the drunkard, only one has 
it worse. Just like the varioloid and 
smallpox, I think they had better call 
in Dr. God and git fixed up. They 
need Him real bad, and git cured fer 
good, or else the devil will git into 
their homes, bringin’ misery and 


death. Fer no country can be strong¬ 
er than its people. So if booze wins 
out, good-bye U. S. A.” 

* * * 

“Look at the other countries, send¬ 
ing liquor here, by the ship load,” 
said the Hon. Bill. 

“That’s one of the things wrong 
with these so-called Christian coun¬ 
tries,” replied the Farmer, “fer if this 
country would ship loads of guns and 
powder to them to give to folks who 
wanted to use them to upset their 
laws, they’d try and stop us mighty 
quick. So they should try and help 
us make this earth right to live in, 
fer all countries should respect the 
laws of another, particularly when it 
means the happiness of the people. 
Some years ago China wanted to wipe 
out the opium business in their coun 
try, and just because England made 
money out of it and she got a rake off 
from it, she sent warships and threat¬ 
ened to blow China off the map if 
opium was cut off, and the conse¬ 
quence is that opium is sold all over 
the world and millions is bein’ spent 
to git the best of it. 

* * * 

“Now to my mind the United States 
has about as much right to send pow¬ 
der and bullets to England, as Eng¬ 
land has to ship booze over here. I 
am prayin’ the time will come when 
nations will respect each other’s laws 
that means the upliftin’ of men. Say, 
it took Kansas over 25 years to fight 
against booze, and so did Maine, and 
they had to fight the whole country. 
It will take about that long to edu¬ 
cate the people of this country and 
by that time we will have a new gen¬ 
eration at the helm and all the old 
rummies will either be poisoned or 
died a natural death. It won’t be so 
hard, fer they won’t be up against the 
booze gang, who always work in the 
dark, and not in God's sunlight. Na¬ 
tions must come together and adjust 
this question and respect the rights 
of others, who make their own laws, 
and we got to advocate this strong.” 


42 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


“See here, you,” angrily said the 
Hon. Bill. “Since you joined this 
party I can’t get a word in edgeways. 
I was talking to my friends when you 
butted in.” 

“It’s my place to butt in,” said the 
Farmer. “You wuz attackin’ my coun¬ 
try, advisin’ folks to break our 
laws, advocatin’ the work of the devil, 
destroyin’ the faith in God almighty, 
violatin’ your responsibilities as an 
American citizen, and when I find a 
dodger like you, I always butt in, 
that’s my responsibility, and I’m re- 
sponsin’.” 

* * * 

“We don’t want any country hicks 
like you to tell us what to do,” shout¬ 


ed the Hon. Bill.” Go back to your 
farm and raise more hogs, that’s all 
you are fit for.” 

“You’re right there,” responded the 
Farmer. “I can raise fine hogs al¬ 
right and the worst of them is better 
than your gang, fer a hog is a hog 
and we only expect hog things from 
them and the product of my hogs is 
more respectable than what your 
gang is turnin’ out, fer you can’t get 
them to waller in the gutter drunk* 
either. You’re gittin’ cross, so I’m 
goin’ to leave, but I’m tellin’ you I’m 
strong fer my God, country and home, 
and nothin’ can beat that combination. 
Do you git me?” and with a crack of 
his whip, Farmer John drove away. 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


43 


RAT HOLES OF LIFE 


Many Foundations of Character Look Like a Sieve, They 
Have so Many Holes in Them 


“Say,” remarked Farmer John, one 
day as he came into my office, “I’ve 
been a lookin’ at folks and lots of 
them to and just wonderin’ how many 
holes they got in the foundation of 
their character. Why, if we wuz to 
investigate, I’ll bet most of those foun¬ 
dation would look like a sieve, all hon¬ 
ey-combed and puzzlin’ us how they 
can stand up. Did that ever strike 
you?” 

As usual the Farmer put some ques¬ 
tion to me that I could not answer 
very well without some thought. 
Knowing he had something on his 
mind, I took the easiest course and 
asked: “What kind of animals made 
these holes you speak about? 

“The rats make these holes and 
they’re eatin’ right into our foundation 
of livin’ and things are gittin’ away 
from us. Now what we want to git 
is a lot of rat traps, to pertect our¬ 
selves agin them.” 

* * * 

“Would you have everybody loaded 
down with traps like a peddlar?” I 
asked. 

“Figuratively speakin’, I mean,” he 
replied, “fer when I think of the fel¬ 
lers I knowed in my life time and 
how they lost out, they ought to have 
a carload of them and all baited with 
cheese, to make sure they would trap 
them. But these very same fellers, 
thinkin’ how smart they wuz, not lis¬ 
tenin’ to the ones who had been filled 
with holes of bad habits, went right 
ahead, full steam, and the next thing 
they knew they wuz over run with 
the rats. 

* * * 

“Now we read in the Bible, about 
that big strong man Samson. He 


wuzn’t afraid of nothin’; just as soon 
kill a couple thousand men as eat his 
meals, or go out in the woods, corral 
a big bunch of foxes, tie their tails 
together and perceed to enjoy himself. 
I’ll bet he thought nothin’ could get 
him if he only kept his secret that 
he had to have long hair, but in 
course of time he blowed and a little 
pair of shears, put Samson out of 
business. Now Samson’s rat wuz a 
pair of scissors and they made him 
weaked than a baby, with the result 
he lost his strength, his eyes and at 
last his life. He knew what they 
would do to him. Why it seems to 
me if I wuz Samson, I would run a 
mile to dodge every pair of scissors 
I come across!” 

* * * 

“Well we are all not like Samson,” 

I said, “strong and big.” 

“Not a bit of difference,” replied 
the Farmer, “He got the swelled head 
and so have most of us. That ain’t 
wise. They git feelin’ good and think 
nothin’ will git them as they think 
they can dodge them, but the rats are 
sly animals, they don’t work when 
folks are watchin’ them, they do their 
damage quietly, sneaky like and when 
the rats of habits start to drill their 
holes it feels soothin’ and pleasant, 
but after they bored away in then the 
soothin’ part begins to hurt and the 
holes git big. They know then they 
ought to have set their traps long 
ago.” 

* * * 

“Where would you set these traps?” 
I asked curiously. 

“Well, whenever we know those 
rats are beginnin’ to gnaw we set them 
right there fer they will come back 
agin. Everybody has holes in dif- 




44 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


ferent places and if we find the holes 
already in we got to cement them up, 
close them. The best kind of cement 
to use is knowledge and the only way 
we can git that kind of cement is by 
readin’ and studyin’. We can’t buy 
it, but there is tons of it layin’ around 
loose. All we got to do is pick it up 
and smear up the holes. 

* * * 

“Now my father used to tell me 
knowledge is power and it is. What 
use is anybody today that ain’t got 
knowledge. They’re worse off than a 
blind man a gropin’ in a desert and 
don’t know how to make a bee line 
to safety. They may by chance hit 
the right way, but they are still grop¬ 
in’ and liable to fly off the wrong way 
any time. Those fellers put me in 
mind of sittin’ on a keg of powder 
smokin’ a cigarette; at any second 
they might be shot up toward the 
stars and when they come down again 
they wouldn’t be in one piece, the 
same as they went up. 

“Now to git the best kind of know¬ 
ledge as we trot along the path of 
•life is to look fer our guide posts, fer 
we can see them all along the line 
if we ain’t blind and the best one 
is ‘Integrity.’ We always want to 
keep this post in sight and we bet¬ 
ter turn back mighty quick if we lose 
sight of it. The longer we see that 
post the higher it gits, but if we don’t 
want to keep it in sight it will shrink 
and git away faster than a stray dog 
hit with a brick. 

“We can’t let any rat dig under 
that post so it gits away from us. We 
can’t let any dog bury bones under 
it. So we better set two traps near 
our integrity post, and keep a shot 
gun pointin’ at it all the time as in¬ 
tegrity is our true guide, fer if we 
lose it folks will lose faith in us, and 
when they do we’re up against it fer 
fair. 

* * * 

“Set a trap to guard our honesty. 
Say, there is so many ways to chew 
holes in our honesty it would take ten 
pages to tell about it. There are 
thousands of rats layin’ to destroy it. 
We git them from all sides. Some 


folks think that honesty only con¬ 
cerns money. They’re wrong. It con¬ 
cerns what we say about others, our 
duties to ourselves, our employers, 
families, to society and to our God and 
country. So git out the traps, set 
them all around our honesty post and 
stick the post in deep, so it won’t fall 
over, fer the instant you le<uve it un¬ 
guarded the rats will git into it. Read 
the papers and you will find how many 
fellers let the rats chew down their 
honesty post. 

* * * 

“Energy and perseverance should 
be surrounded with traps, fer if we 
git holes in them we might as well 
try to run a locomotive without steam 
or an auto without gas. Nothin’ 
moves. If we are full of energy it’s 
just like a shot of dynamite, one bang 
and its all over, but if perseverence 
is O. K. we git the series of bangs 
that’ll make everybody sit up and take 
notice. Don’t let the rat of lazziness 
bore into us. Don’t let one little shot 
of energy satisfy, then sit down and 
take things easy. We had better git 
after that rat, trap him, so persever¬ 
ence can work in. Take things easy 
when you have your vacation, but 
don’t play the mule act and let your 
perseverence fly out at your heels. 

* * * 

“Punctuality requires another trap 
to be set. The feller that thinks any 
old time will do has the rat that is 
borin’ in. Fer if we want to git a 
train at 9 and don’t show up until 11, 
we don’t git that train. Through life 
we’re gittin’ on board many kinds of 
trains that won’t wait and time lost 
is just like a train; if we miss it we 
can never git it again, it is gone for¬ 
ever. To be punctual shows you are 
on the job, shows you got integrity, 
honesty, energy and perseverence and 
those rats ain’t got you. 

* * * 

“Confidence should be watched. Say, 
did you ever notice how many folks 
will tell you • how to do things who 
never showed ability to manage a dog 
house? The world is full of them. Ii’ 
you listen they will pester the life out 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


of you. Better watch out, they are 
after you just like the woman after 
Samson. Take your pointers from 
folks that do things. Be guided by 
experience and knowledge and not 
“gusts of hot air.” Mister Carnegie 
said one day, ‘If you got confidence 
put all your eggs in one basket and 
watch that basket with a shot gun and 
then hustle,’ is good sound advise. 
No rat will come around, fer you are 
on the job. 

* * * 

“Enthusiasm is another guide to 
success. When I say enthusiasm, I 
don’t mean bluff. Enthusiasm is like 
smallpox; its catchin’ and when you 
got it everybody near you will get it. 
There never wuz a man in this world 
that made a hit that wuzn’t full of it. 
So when you start be sure you got 
full pressure up and keep it goin’. En¬ 
thusiasm made this country what it 
is; it spelled victory in the last war, 
it has saved millions of lives, it has 
perfected our great inventions. Set 
a trap right here; don’t let our enthus¬ 
iasm be destroyed. 

* * * 

“Then we got to watch our temper. 
Don’t the rats like to bite us and git 
us goin’ so we will fly up in the air 
and spill things and don’t know where 
we’re goin’ to land? When ihis hap¬ 
pens we want to git away and think 
things over before we start to pull 
things down all about our ears. Where 
would this country be if Washington 
had lost his head durin’ the Revolu¬ 
tion, or Lincoln durin’ the Civil war. 
Whenever everything looked black 
both of these men set their traps and 
got the rats and trusted in God Al¬ 
mighty. So we can’t afford to git hot 
under the collar or we can t land our 
rat. 

* * * 

“Then there is the guide post of 
good habits on this path of success. 
Sakes alive how the rats like to chew 
on them. We can afford to let the 
rats git after the bad ones, but they 
don’t like the taste, so they let them 
alone. We don’t want the bad habits 
any more than a kangaroo wants an 


45 - 

elephants trunk. So set some traps to 
guard our good habits. 

* * * 

“Cleanliness is another important 
thing. Nothin’ attracts rats quicker 
than dirt. And there is different kinds, 
of dirt, too. Some we can wash off 
with soap and water, but the other 
kind takes somethin’ stronger to- 
clean it away. That’s the worst kind. 
Most folks look only at the dirt on the 
outside and talk about it and if folks 
have good clothes, clean hands and 
face, which is a mighty good thing 
too, they will pass muster. But we 
MUST keep clean on the inside, our 
hearts right; fer that is where the 
rats chew in. We can admire the 
beautiful apple, but if it is full of 
worm holes we know the heart of it 
is bad and it don’t take long until it 
shows up on the outside and we git 
weak and ain’t no good to ourselves or 
anybody else. So keep clean outside 
and particularly inside and set your 
traps to do it. 

* * * 

“Now these guide posts are fer 
everybody, makin’ no difference where 
they work, in the office or factory, out¬ 
side or inside. Keep out these rats, 
fer whenever anyone tempts us to 
break down our guide posts remember 
the rats are after us, tryin’ to destroy 
us; takin’ away our guide posts,, 
squelchin’ our prospects in life and 
hope fer eternity. All these posts are 
fer our welfare, to build up our char¬ 
acter, which must be good and above 
reproach; so don’t let the rats eat it 
away. 

* * * 

“Now the whole thing is we must 
know ourselves. Study ourselves just 
as we do our lessons at school, so we 
will know our weaknesses. When we- 
know the rats are chewin’ at us, we 
know the spot we got to plug up and 
reinforce and stop up the holes. In¬ 
tegrity, energy, perseverance, confi¬ 
dence, honesty, punctuality, enthus¬ 
iasm, cleanliness, temper and above 
all knowledge, will bring success to 
anyone who practices them and 


46 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


guards them and will be an honor to 
themselves, their family and their 
God. All these things combined 
makes our house of life sound and 
solid. 

* * * 

“So git out our traps, set them all 
round about us, fer the enemy is 
prowlin’ around on every hand. When¬ 
ever our weaknesses are attacked we 
know it ain’t fer our good; they want 
to destroy our house. Some of these 
enemies will lay around fer years and 
pridin’ ourselves we are safe we let 
down our watchin’. They have stud¬ 
ied us and all at once they spring at 


us, just like a tiger or a panther and 
then destroy our work of years, just 
like a big fire. We can build our 
house, spend years at it, be proud of 
it and all at once we neglect to look 
out fer this destroyin’ element; it 
breaks out and our beautiful house is 
nothin’ but ashes. We ain’t through 
with the rats of life until the good 
Lord calls us home; so if we all get 
busy, kill off these rats, keep our 
traps set, never lettin’ up, we are 
makin’ this world an easier place fer 
our children to live in and enjoy the 
fruits of our work, which will last 
until the end of time.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


47 ' 


BEGININ’ OF THE BATTLE 


Some Carpenters Would Make Good Preachers and Some 
Lawyers Would Make First Class Laborers 


“I wuz at one of those meetin’s that 
the folk call a commencement, the 
other night,” said Farmer John one 
day at my office during his usual visit, 
“and I wuz surprised how pretty the 
girls looked, all dressed in white, hair 
in curls tied with colored ribbon and 
the boys all togged out in their Sun¬ 
day clothes, lookin’ strong and 
healthy, all of them smilin’ and laugh¬ 
in’ and happy because their school 
days wuz over, and just like frisky 
colts wuz ready to dash out into the 
world, to kick a hole in it right away 
and make their mark. 

* * * 

“Soon these youngsters started to 
speak their pieces, then the big con¬ 
gregation would clap their hands and 
cheer and hit them with bunches of 
flowers. Then the kids would bow and 
back off the platform. Why they sung 
songs and read poetry and told stories 
on each other. Then one of them, the 
fortune teller of the crowd, said how 
each one of them wuz goin’ to be 
somethin’ great; some wuz to be mil¬ 
lionaires, some inventors, then doc¬ 
tors and all kinds of jobs. By jinks, 
not a one of them wuz goin’ to swing 
a pick nor be a farmer. 

* * * 

“Say, I wonder how those young¬ 
sters picked out them jobs fer them¬ 
selves. I never had the chanst to. If 
all these young folks are goin’ to 
wear white collars we’re goin’ to be 
up against it when it comes to folks 
dirtyin’ their hands to help out. Well 
anyway soon one of the teachers came 
out and handed each one of these kids 
a paper, with a tassel danglin’ from 
it about the size of a small pie, and all 


red just like gold. Golly, it looked 
perty and told how each one of them 
kids wuz a champion in something. 
They didn’t have a dummy among 
them, fer all of them wuz the smartest 
bunch that ever squatted on a plat¬ 
form from that school. 

* * * 

“And wuzn’t I glad to know how 
smart they wuz and so wuz the folks, 
because they clapped their hands un¬ 
til it sounded like a big hail storm 
and cheered, as if they wuz at a politi¬ 
cal meetin’. How proud those young¬ 
sters looked, some of them so much 
that they turned red to the back of 
their neck. I’ll bet they didn’t know 
how real smart they wuz until the 
teacher told them and they begun to 
think us folks who wuz cheerin’ them 
wuz dummies and nothin’ but a hunk 
of moldy cheese. 

* * * 

“Now I ain’t jealous of the kids; no, 
siree. I wuz proud of them, just as 
if they wuz all my children. I never 
wuz told how smart I wuz but once, 
and all because I fastened two mules 
together, with their rear ends facing 
each other, and I tickled them with 
a whip. Then one tried to kick the 
other to New York while the second 
one did its best to bang number one 
to Jerusalem. I wuz having lots of 
fun wTien my dad grabbed me and 
told me I wuz too smart, so my bones 
ached fer months after he got through 
with me and I wuzn’t so smart as I 
thought I wuz. So when I think I’m 
smart, I remember those mules. 

* * S' 

“Now not once did anyone of that 
big crowd tell those youngsters what 
life really wuz. They got the idee they 




48 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


wuz smart; didn’t everybody tell them 
so, fer nobody would lie to those inno¬ 
cent young folks. Why, I think they 
thought life wuz as easy as slidin’ 
down the steps all covered with soap 
and each step covered with a cushion 
and they couldn’t git bumped. But 
if they got together about 10 years 
after and compared notes they’d agree 
that life wuz like the soap steps, but 
there wuz no cushions to stop the 
bumps, fer it wuz mighty easy to 
slide down and when they landed 
they’d know they got an awful rattlin’ 
when they wuz gittin’ bumped. 

* * * 

“Now this puts me in mind that one 
time I had a big field of berries to 
pick. I hires a lot of boys and girls 
to pick them fer me. Of course I 
paid them, so I turned them loose in 
this big berry patch and they all scat¬ 
tered out. Inside of 15 minutes they 
wuz all over the field. Most of them 
would pick a few in one spot, then 
rush to another. When I called them 
in at noon to eat I looked to see how 
many berries each one had. Some of 
them had a pint, others a quart and 
very few had eight to ten quarts. 

* * * 

“So I asked them how they come to 
pick so many, while the rest only had 
a few. One bright lad told me the 
others wuz wastin’ too much time 
roamin’ over the field and he just 
stuck to his bush, picked that clean 
and then went to another and cleaned 
that up too. That lad struck the real 
secret of bein’ successful in life, 
STICK TO YOUR BUSH. Don’t rush 
all over the field of life, like a frisky 
colt without any object in view, fer 
when the frosts of life git settled on 
your head and your joints git stiff, 
you’ll find out you ain’t as frisky as 
you wuz and you only got about a 
pint of berries to keep life in you. 
If I want my things to grow on my 
farm I got to cultivate them, try and 
make them grow, but I can’t be dig- 
gin’ them up all the tim^, then think 
I’m going to have a crop when the 
harvest has come. 


“I couldn’t help thinkin’ of these- 
things when I wuz lookin’ at these 
bright boys and girls a sittin’ on that, 
platform, with their eyes sparklin’ and 
wuz full of energy and steam just like 
a locomotive on the track ready fer 
a long run. They wuz fairly itchin’ 
to crash into the world and have the 
first collision right off the reel and 
would plow through life just like an 
engine through a haystack. They got 
the steam up all right; they are ready, 
but no one has warned them that the 
track of life is full of switches and 
if they don’t keep their eyes right on 
the main line they will strike one of 1 
these switches, leave the main track 
and will land up agin a wall or a 
mud bank, figuratively speakin’. 

* * * 

“Now if I wuz in that bunch of 
youngsters I couldn’t help thinkin' 
that makin’ your mark in life would 
be a snap. It would be like me look¬ 
in’ at a field a long way off, how green 
and fine it looked. I couldn’t see a 
bad spot in it and I would think that 
when I got there what an easy thing 
I’d have, but if we took a spy glass 
and looked agin we would see that 
very same field was full of bare spots, 
just like any other one. It’s another 
case of stickin’ to your bush. We got 
to set our mark high, just like Abe 
Dilks when he shot at the brass hen 
on top of the church steeple. The hen 
is there yet and ain’t even got a mark 
on it in spite of Abe’s shootin’ at it. 
Somethin’ wrong with Abe’s aimin’. 

* * * 

“I often wondered if those young / 
folks ever thought that life is just 
like a great big high ladder set in the 
middle of the field of life, so just as 
soon as they wuz through school they 
all rushed fer it and found out that 
all aroun’ it wuz a big crowd of folks 
all strugglin’ to git a hand hold so 
they could start to climb up. They 
looked up and saw the rung they 
wanted to reach and perch on it. It 
looked as if it wuz almost up in the 
sky and there wuzn’t very many folks ; 
up that high either. This ladder has. 
got lots of rungs to git a hold of,. 


FARMER JOHN S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


49 


lots of rungs to hang to. So the ques¬ 
tion is, how far up will each climb? 
Some of them will git up quite a ways, 
let go and down they drop. They will 
find folks tryin’ to pull them down 
and if they ain’t got a tight grip on 
the rungs they are liable to tumble al¬ 
most back to the bottom. Some won’t 
drop quite so far, but they drop just 
the same. So this big battle is to fight 
your way up this ladder, holdin’ with 
a steel-like grip and above all stick 
any they will win out. 

* * * 

“Now if these young folks have grad¬ 
uated from the biggest college in the 
world, which is home, and learned 
how to think, be square, honest and 
work and don’t let their education git 
away from them; combinin’ this with 
what they learn when they are craw¬ 
lin’ up this ladder, they’re goin’ to 
reach their rung. They don’t have 
to know everything, but just what they 
want to know, and got to know it 
well. Thinkin’ you do won’t git you 
there, because there are too many 
folks tryin’ to sneak up this ladder on 
a bluff. It puts me in mind of my 
bull dog, to hear him bark you would 
think he would eat you alive, but if 
you go after him with a club he will 
turn tail in a minute and all these 
bluffers will do the same. Now if 
you know and you know you know and 
you ain’t bluffin’ and you go after 
these bluffin’ fellers with the club 
of knowledge, they won’t scare you a 
bit; you will git all the head room 
you want. 

* * * 

“Now if I want to pick blackber¬ 
ries I ain’t goin’ to look fer them on 
strawberry vines. If I want potatoes, 
I won’t find them in a turnip field. 
Just so with the jobs these young 
folks choose, if they ain’t got a job 
that’s a pleasure to work at or inter¬ 
est you or you can’t study it and 
learn it, why don’t touch it. There 
are too many young folks that are 
tryin’ to be preachers that would 
make good carpenters and lots of car¬ 
penters that would make good preach¬ 
ers, and I know some lawyers that 


would make first-class laborers and 
teadhers that would make good hod 
carriers. This will be found all 
through life. 

* * * 

“You will find most of these fetters 
picked these kind of jobs because they 
wanted to wear white collars and 
don’t want to dirty their hands. Why 
man alive we couldn’t live if someone 
didn’t soil their hands to keep us 
goin’. We would starve if someone 
didn’t dig in the earth. This puts 
me in mind of a mule I once had. It 
could pull like a trooper when it 
wanted to, but it didn’t want to; so 
all it would do wuz kick, it wuz so 
derned ornery. So after demolishin’ 
several wagons, knockin’ my barn 
down and puttin’ my life in danger, a 
shot gun put it where it wouldn’t do 
any more hurt. Now I’m not advocat¬ 
in’ to kill all these fellers that didn’t 
choose right, but they ain’t treatin' 
themselves, God Almighty, nor their 
families right by actin’ that way. 

* * * 

“When I look back and think of the 
boys I knowed when I wuz young, 
some of them are millionaires, others 
hold big jobs in corporations, some 
are helpin’ to run this government, 
but a bigger bunch is on the grubbin’ 
list and can’t make enough to pay 
their board bill. The successful ones 
didn’t roam all over creation lookin’ 
fer somethin’ soft, tryin’ to git money 
without workin’ fer it, fer it takes a 
lot of plannin’ and schemin’ to git 
money without workin’ fer it. So if 
these grubbers had used the same 
energy in workin’ as they did in dodg¬ 
in’ they would be successful too and 
wouldn’t have to hunt up their old 
friends and ‘make a touch.’ 

* * * 

“Everyone of those young folks on 
that stage has got to do their own 
climbin’. They will either climb or 
tumble by their own work and ain’t 
got time to fool around. They got to 
watch their own rungs and where they 
plant their feet and stick them in 
solid, so they won’t slip. They got 
to git in the battle, use their own; 


50 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


steam and knowledge. I don’t care 
how much money ‘the old gent’ has. 
Some may git a better start, but in 
after years just note how high they 
climbed the ladder, fer they depend¬ 
ed on someone else and couldn’t make 
good. 

* * * 

“Life is like a great big seive, with 
lots of holes in it, and it is jogglin’ 
all the time; it don’t stop. If you 
don’t grow big enough to roll over 
these holes you are goin’ to drop 
through one of them and your ladder 
climbin’ is done, fer awhile at least, 
until you grow bigger, but many folks 
when they git sifted and drop, they 
begin to shrink and git smaller every 


day and lose out. So let us make 
these boys and girls understand what 
the battle of life means; let us train 
them fer the fight, just like fighters 
are trained; not soaked up with bad 
habits, not weakened by idleness nor 
dissipation. Don’t let them think the 
world is soft and rosy. Let us show 
them how to win out. Let us give 
them the one big guide that will al¬ 
ways put them right when they are 
liable to git switched off the main 
track. Present each one of them with 
a Bible; tell them to study it, let it 
be their guide. It will put them wise 
and us old codgers and the youngsters 
and the world at large will be the 
better fer it.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


51 


ONE BAD EGG 


If Folks Wouldn’t Bust so Many Bad Eggs, We Wouldn’t 

Need Jails, Laws or Lawyers 


“I got one of the derndest set-backs 
the other day that I ever got,” said 
Farmer John one day to a party of 
friends who were in my office at the 
time, “just because of a fool act of 
my hired man, Hank. Why it almost 
ruined my reputation as an honest 
man among my acquaintances and cus¬ 
tomers. And it happened this way. 

“When I wuz gittin’ ready fer mar¬ 
ket the other day, I tells Hank to git 
•out all the eggs and put them in the 
wagon and when he wuz gatherin’ 
them to be sure not to git the nest 
eggs mixed up with the good ones, 
Fer you know T we always keep a egg 
in the chicken nest to show them it 
wuz the proper place to lay eggs and 
not in some hole or corner where we 
couldn’t find them. You know an egg 
that’s been hangin’ around in a nest 
fer several months ain’t particularly 
relished fer eatin’ purposes. 

* * * 

“Not payin’ any attention to Hank, 
who said he got the eggs in the wagon 
all right; being busy with other things 
so I starts off. When I reached the 
market and got ready fer business a 
feller comes along and asks abcut the 
eggs. I guarranteed every one of them. 
The felier picks up a egg, held it up 
to the sun, looked at it, then shook 
it real hard. Then he looked at it 
some more and he said. ‘That’s a bad 
egg, the inside rolls around like if 
it wuz filled with water.’ I wuzn’t 
payin’ no attention to him as I wuz 
"busy sellin’ stuff. So I said ‘Them’s 
good eggs, every one of them fresh 
and fine.’ Then the feller looked at 
the egg again and shook it some more 
and says ‘If that egg’s good, I’ll buy 
•everyone you got.’ So I took him up 


and the other folks, hearin’ what we 
said, got around us. So I picks up the 
egg and gives it a tap. 

* * * 

“I heard an explosion and, JERUS^. 
LEM! I nearly fainted. That egg smell¬ 
ed worse than four limberger cheeses 
in a row. It certainly wuz awful. A 
good ripe dead horse couldn’t equal 
the perfume that come from that on« 
small egg. All the folks grabbed their 
noses and run. I’d done the same my¬ 
self, only I wuz holdin’ the egg and 
had to stand and take it. So just as 
soon as I could git my breath I slung 
it in a bucket and dern me if that 
bucket looked as if it shivered, re¬ 
bellin’ agin’ havin’ that egg inside of 
it, and I couldn’t blame it. 

* * * 

“The egg wuz fierce. After awhile 
I got the folks back. I told them 
there wuz a mistake somewhere and 
to prove all the eggs wuz fresh I 
would open them and show them. 
When I said that it nearly caused a 
riot. They backed away and shouted 
if I opened another egg they would 
have me arrested and sick the Board 
of Health onto me. But I stood my 
ground and opened a half a dozen. 
They wuz all fresh, but the folks 
swore that I knew the good eggs and 
could pick them out. Then the cop 
come along and ordered me to git 
out, take those eggs home and bur) 
them, fer if I didn’t he’d pull me in 
fer gassin’ folks. So I had to beat it 
quick. 

* * * 

“I wuz madder than a hatter when 
I got there. I went fer Hank, rough, 
and wanted to know how he put nest 
eggs in with the fresh ones, when I 
told him not to do it. So he says he 





52 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


wuz assortin’ them, puttin’ the nest 
eggs in one pile and the good ones 
close by and a nest egg must a rolled 
over and got mixed into good company 
and he didn’t know it. So just by 
dumb luck that wuz the egg the fel¬ 
ler picked up in the market. I scold¬ 
ed Hank real hard and he promised 
to watch out better the next time, 
and he’d better do it to. Why man 
aiive, I won’t be able to sell another 
egg in that market fer six months 
and then they will believe I’m lyin’ 
about them. It’ll take me a long time 
to git over the damage done by that 
one egg.” 

* * * 

“That certainly was an unpleasant 
experience,” I answered, “but the re¬ 
sults may not be as bad as you ex¬ 
pect.” 

“Oh, it will last all right,” replied 
the Farmer. “Suppose you’d been the 
feller that wanted to buy those eggs 
and you got a dose of that one bad 
egg, after it wuz busted with about 
40 pounds of gas pressure behind it, 
you wouldn’t be through talkin’ about 
it yet, fer you’d be smellin’ that egg 
fer the next year before you’d git it 
out of your system. And agin, you’d 
be tellin’ all your friends about it 
and make them all smell decayed eggs 
if you could. Now wouldn’t you?” 
So we had to admit he was right as it 
was human nature to talk. 

* * * 

“Yes, and at the same time you’d 
be tellin’ who it wuz that tried to sell 
ancient hen fruit and when you come 
to market you’d point me out as the 
‘jay that done it. Why none of you 
folks would take a chance on my eggs 
after that, particularly if you’d come 
within nose range of that one bad egg. 
You’d never forgit it and neither will 
I, fer every time I see an egg I’ll 
think of that one and smell it too. 
Now I ain’t got a chance to tell how it 
happened and you fellers who wuz tell¬ 
in’ the story wouldn’t say anything 
about it, fer that would tame it down 
and you couldn’t twist it any way you 
wanted to, if you did. 


“But there’s a big lesson in that one 
bad egg that we should never fergit, 
fer you see I had to suffer fer the 
mistake of someone else, in spite of 
my warnin’s. That’s where the rub 
comes; too many folks are playin’ the 
pussyfoot stuff and balmin’ folks fer 
things they never did. So as bad as 
that one egg wuz we got to pick the 
good out of it, fer it makes no differ¬ 
ence in what shape things come, 
whether in joy or in sorrow, we can 
use them all fer our own good. 

* * * 

“Just as the rain and the sunshine- 
are needed fer our existence, we got 
to have both and that egg business, 
only shows what our nature is like and 
how folks will jump at conclusions and 
ruin innocent people. Now I didn’t 
have anything to do with that egg 
gittin’ in with the good ones. I wuzn’t 
tryin’ to sell it. But when that dumb 
Hank got them mixed up and I opened 
it, I got blamed fer the whole thing 
and I lost a half dozen good ones try¬ 
in’ to put myself right and all the 
other eggs wuz ordered to be buried 
when they wuz all right. 

* * * 

“And this very same thing happens, 
when I hear men a talkin’ on the 
street, a gabbin’ and tellin’ each other 
about somebody and what scandalous 
thing they done and how the party 
ought to be tarred and feathered and 
wuzn’t fit. fer decent society. Maybe 
this very same party they wuz roastin’ 
ain’t done nothin’ at all and every¬ 
thing they said wuz only gossip. Now 
wuzn’t those fellers openin’ bad eggs,, 
poisonin’ the air, ruinin’ this man’s 
reputation, just like Hank put mine on 
the blink when I wuz defenseless? 

* * * 

“Look at the millions of folks that 
go to church. Some of them are regu¬ 
lar saints, always doin’ good, never 
thinkin’ of themselves, but only of 
other folks that are in trouble. Then 
there are some of them that ain’t so 
good, tryin’ to slip into Heaven easy- 
like, at the same time not missin’ any¬ 
thing they can grab on this earth; 
fer they want to git everything, both 



FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


53 


goin’ and cornin’. They hate like the 
dickens to let go of the devil, fer that 
means a shrinkage of bank accounts 
and they’re afraid to let go of God, 
because of what’s cornin’ in the future. 
So there they are, between two forces, 
each pullin’ opposite ways. So if 
there isn’t a shift those folks are goin’ 
to split in half. That means death 
and if they go with the devil, the same 
thing, and if they go with God, the 
opposite thing. 

* * * 

“But these poor simps, with two to 
■one agin him, is just like Hank a pick¬ 
in’ out eggs, they git the bad ones that 
are nest worn and ancient and when 
they bust them, the same thing occurs 
that happened in the market. Who¬ 
ever gits a whiff of that egg holds 
their noses and runs. They are cre¬ 
atin’ an atmosphere that don’t smell 
exactly right, bein’ mixed with the 
songs of joy and praises to God Al¬ 
mighty of the good folks. Then the 
folks that don’t belong to church be¬ 
gins to spout that the churches are 
just like that one bad egg. 

* * * 

“Fer didn’t everybody in the mar¬ 
ket swear that my eggs wuz all bad 
just because one of them drove them 
away; fer us humans ain’t got the 
power to make that air pure. But the 
good Lord can sift out the good from 
the bad, but we got to gobble it all in. 
So we git fooled, dependin’ on our mor¬ 
tal noses to form our opinions. So 
we continue to open ancient eggs 
poisonin’ the air, but if we git some 
disinfectant from the Lord we crm 
soon tell where the egg has been 
busted and separate the good from 
the bad. 

* * * 

“So if we are proud of our church 
and want to do right, clean out your 
heart. Don’t spring any busted nest 
eggs to make folks roast your church 
and drive people from it; fer God Al¬ 
mighty don’t want any atmosphere 
like that arisin’ up to Him, mixed 
with the prayers of the righteous. So 
if you belong to church you got to 


act right, fer one bad egg will drive 
folks away. DON’T BE THAT EGG. 
* * * 

“Now take our home life. Most of 
us are proud of our homes, fer they 
are the real strength of our country. 
Let our home life git bad and this 
great country will git on the wane; 
fer if the atmosphere of home life 
gits tainted who wants to stay at 
home, where there is good and foul 
air mixed, fer its got to be one thing 
or the other. If it is good and whole¬ 
some, happiness reigns, it will attract 
others, folks will want to visit you, 
fer laughter and song will float from 
cellar to roof, but if the bad egg of 
gamblin’, drinkin’, cursin’ poisons the 
air, you are bringin’ death to your 
family and your visitors will be just 
the kind that thrives in that kind of 
atmosphere, like snails and creepin’ 
things that flourish in filth, which 
makes matters worse. 

* * * 

“We got to clean house, hunt up 
these bad eggs, put them out of the 
way, bury them, git some purifyin’ 
stuff from the Lord, fer there is lots 
of it in the Bible, and apply it. We 
got to be decent ourselves; we can’t 
yell how dirty some one else is if we 
are foul ourselves and we can’t blame 
anybody else until we are clean our* 
selves. This bad egg business has 
got to be attended to individually. 
So if each one of us throws away his 
bad eggs, then no one in the crowd 
will have any, so none can be busted. 
Let’s us pick them out, bury them and 
we won’t have any bad air. 

* * * 

“We got all kinds of societies in this 
country, rescuin’ cannibals to support¬ 
in’ crosseyed cats, fer the whole coun¬ 
try is itchin’ to join some kind of a 
society. We got them that make you 
swear you will go to church and others 
that you won’t; others that you will 
help all your brother members, pro¬ 
vidin’ they don’t owe 15 cents dues; 
we got them that will support our 
flag and others that won’t; we have 
them to rescue drunkards, dope fiends 
and others that will let good folks 


54 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


s 

that ain’t that kind starve; we got 
them buildin’ homes fer orphans, fer 
protectin’ animals and let folks abuse 
their children. It looks to me that 
most of them has too much bad egg 
mixture in them, so the good folks 

can’t do the work alone. 

* * * 

“So if any member of these socie¬ 
ties does anything bad, then you can 
hear the knockin’ and hammerin’, a 
regular anvil chorus, the societies 
never wuz any good, nor anybody that 
belongs, and all because one party 
busted a bad egg. If we want to keep 
our societies clean, polish up ourselves, 
then no one will suffer; fer every per¬ 
son that joins a society holds its repu¬ 
tation by his actions. Everything we 
do, is charged up against the organi¬ 
zations we belong to. So if you are 
bustin’ bad eggs you are injurin’ other 
folks besides yourself. DON’T BE 
THAT BAD EGG. 

* * * 

“This world is full of eggs and some 
one is always bustin’ them. So to per- 
tect ourselves we got to build jails and 
penetentiaries, then we got to make 
laws so we can fill them. Why right 
now we got 98 law factories goin’ full 
blast, not countin’ the ones in every 
city in this country. So we are suc¬ 
ceedin’ pretty well in keepin’ our jails 
populated, because there never wuz a 
man-made law that wuzn’t layin’ fer 

the other feller, so we can jug him. 

* * * 

“Why man alive we just like to 
make laws, but the good Lord, know- 
in’ we wuz human, gave us two to 
remember, but we. bein’ more wise 
than our great Creator, grind out a 
couple of million or so and keep on 
grindin’ until we don’t know how 
many we really have. So we hire law¬ 
yers to tell us and show us how to 
dodge them. Our preachers can show 
us how to dodge them if we git on 
the Lord’s side and watch those two, 
but the average feller keeps shy of 


them, keeps on bustin’ bad eggs, then 
hire the lawyer to show them how to 
skin out of the laws we made. 

“The preacher has only one book 
to guide him, but the lawyer has to 
hunt through a couple of thousand be¬ 
fore he can find a loop hole, so the 
busters can sneak through and won’t 
have to go to jail or give up their bank 
account. But there never wuz a law¬ 
yer yet, nor never will be, who can 
tell you how to bust the Lord’s two 

laws and escape. It can’t be did. 

* * * 

“Now why don’t folks take this one 
book, the Bible, and study it so we 
won’t need any lawyers, jails or law 
factories, and apply it to our way to 
live. Old Satan wuz the original bad 
egg and he’s poisoned the whole world 
and we, copyin’ after him, keep on 
bustin’ the eggs, passin’ the work 
along and educatin’ the children to do 
it too, because we’re settin’ the ex¬ 
ample. There is only one way out of 
this mess. When the devil sees us pull 
down the Bible off the shelf, dust it 
off and start to study it, he’s goin’ to 
beat it quick, fer you never saw the 
devil hangin’ around when the Bible 
got in action. 

“He’ll git out so fast he ain’t got 
time to bust any more decayed hen 
fruit and keep on causin’ trouble, any 
more than a pig can sing the Hallelu¬ 
jah Chorus and we will be so very 
busy we will fergit all about it too, 
with that Bible. So we, all obeyin’ 
the two great laws that the Lord gave 
us, will make the world brighter and 
better, fer we ain’t driving folks away 
from church and our homes; we ain’t 
breakin’ up society that’s tryin’ to do 
good; we ain’t ruinin’ other folks repu¬ 
tation. We’ve hurried our bad eggs, 
so they won’t do damage; we’re keep¬ 
in’ the air pure, as it rises to God 
Almighty, filled with the songs of joy 
and gladness, fer His wonderful good¬ 
ness to us. Now don’t Hank’s bad 
egg teach us a lesson?” 





FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


55 


THE GOOD IN THE DEVIL 


When We See His Danger Lamps We Must Mind Our 

Step or We Will Get Burned 


“Say,” asked Farmer John one day 
as he came into my office, “wuz that 
one of your friends that asked you to 
ask me to tell him what good wuz the 
devil?” I admitted that was right, for 
I thought the worthy Farmer was giv¬ 
en a poser to answer, as we all 
thought his Satanic Majesty was no 
good to himself nor anyone else. 

“Well, since it wuz your friend I 
s’pose I got to give my opinion about 
it, so I’m going to do all the talkin’ 
and when I git through you can ask 
all the questions you want, but you 
won’t ask many. Now I ask you a 
question: When you wuz walkin’ 

along the street you’ve seen these big 
lamps burnin’, showin’ red to warn 
you to watch out, ain’t you?” I ac¬ 
knowledged I had. 

* * * 

“Well, that’s just like the devil, in 
a way. Don’t that fire in that lamp 
burn and make pain, just as bad as 
fire in a stove or anywhere else, if 
we get a dab of it?” I had to admit 
that also. 

“Now, when we see these danger 
lamps that tell us to mind our step, 
watch out, fer if we don’t, we’re goin’ 
to git burnt, fer the longer we stick 
to the fire the more we git it and if 
we stay too long we’ll git good and 
well cooked and just like the devil, 
if we hang on to him too long, we’ll 
git cooked sc very hard that nothin’ 
will be left of us and we ain’t any 
good to ourselves or anybody else. 
Now if the devil is made of consum¬ 
in’ fire and we make a signal light out 
of him, so we can dodge him and avoid 
him and his traps and the dangers of 
life, so we can steer straight, ain’t 
the devil some good to us?” 


I had to admit the philosophy of the 
logic as presented and told the Farm¬ 
er I would ask my questions later and 
he told me again I wouldn’t ask one 
when he got through. 

* * * 

“Now we got to make use of every¬ 
thing we can to help us through life 
and as we are bothered with the devil 
somewhat we got to use him, so we 
can live happy and do good. We can 
take arsenic, which isn’t particularly 
nourishin’ nor provided fer our daily 
meals, fer if we done that our time on 
earth would be short, fer it is deadly 
poison. There is lots of poisons that 
will help us make our lives short and 
make us squirm mightly hard before 
we depart, but if we take those pois¬ 
ons we got to git rid of them or we’re 
goners. The salve that cures us ain’t 
furnished by the devil, he don’t give 
that kind, fer the devil is a bunch of 
poison and will take any life that 
fools with him without the doctor’s 
orders and our doctor never makes 
any mistake, fer he is our good Lord. 

* * * 

“Now I don’t mean if we git sick 
from doin’ wrong we got to take an¬ 
other dose of the devil to git well, fer 
it wuz an overdose of the devil that 
made us sick and caused our trouble. 
So the only way the devil’s poisons 
will do us good is to keep them out 
of our system and git our good doctor 
to take care of us, fer He will give 
us the rules to live by and tell us what 
to watch and not to swaller or git 
burnt. But it looks to me as if most 
folks appear to know more than God 
Almighty, even if he did create this 
great universe and this world and 
everything on it and in it, and we 




56 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


ain’t got sense enough to scratch our 
nose when its itchin’. 

* * * 

“You nor anybody else ever heard 
of the devil givin’ anybody orders, 
fer if he did he would lose customers. 
So it’s easier to foller the devil, who 
don’t give us any laws, lets us do as 
we please, fer he knows if we go his 
way he will land us anyhow and then 
we will find out the devil’s laws are 
very much harder than our good doc¬ 
tor’s and mighty painful, fer they got 
us tied hand and foot, just like the 
little fly that monkeys with a spider’s 
web. You don’t see no spider puttin’ 
up signs to warn the fly, fer if it did 
he wouldn’t git any flies. But let 
Mr. Fly scoot into that web, then it 
will find out the more it struggles and 
kicks the tighter it gits tied up, just 
like the devil laws, and the spider’s 
got Mr. Fly. 

* * * 

“Then again, we must realize that 
life is a stream and leads to some¬ 
where, and it just depends how we 
set sail and steer our boat where we 
will land and if we don’t steer, just 
like Mr. Fly, we land in the devil’s 
clutches. Now, we git in our boat, 
pull up the anchor and set sail. Be¬ 
fore we start we git orders how to 
steer, to dodge the rocks and signals, 
webs and poisons that will be on ev¬ 
ery side. As we go floatin’ down this 
beautiful stream we first make up our 
mind we’re goin’ to keep a sharp look¬ 
out fer these things, but after a while 
we git a little weary in keepin’ up 
this lookout and begin to admire the 
scenery, in spite of the dangers we 
wuz told to dodge, and we begin to 
hang back, get a little closer and 
closer to them; they all look so fine, 
with other folks laughin’ and havin’ 
what appears to us like a royal good 
time, and soon they will be shoutin’ 
to us to make a landin’, git closer to 
the danger shore. 

* * * 

“We see their boats floatin’ as easy 
down the stream, they ain’t workin’ 
hard nor rowin’ to keep on the right 
course, so we think it’s easier fer us 


to do the same and we pull over and 
begin to enjoy these things too. How 
easy everything is; we ain’t bound 
down by any laws, we’re doin’ as we 
please and soon fergit the orders we 
wuz given when we first started out. 
It don’t take us very long to tie up 
the rudder, because we ain’t struck 
anything so far as we can see that is 
doin’ any harm, but we don’t see Mr. 
Devil, hidin’ about the bushes on the 
shore, watchin’ us and givin’ us the 
laugh. He knows what’s goin’ to hap¬ 
pen shortly; we don’t, because we’ve 
having too good a time; fer now we 
fergot all about our orders and let 

things take care of themselves. 

* * * 

“But soon somethin’ happens, a cog 
slipped and we git our first jolt. We 
rush to our rudder and try to pull it 
over, to steer away from the obstruc¬ 
tion, and we find our rudder is all 
tied up. We try to wiggle it, we pull 
and tug and sweat, then we soon find 
out that we got good and well soaked 
with these poisons, we’re gittin’ burn’t, 
it’s beginnin’ to hurt. Then we see 
our boat, instead of floatin’ down the 
stream easy, is flyin’ like fury down 
the stream of life, with nothin’ to 
control it. We begin to look around 
and then we see those folks who stuck 
to their orders, sailin’ along easy, en¬ 
joyin’ themselves. They ain’t groan¬ 
in’ with pain, because they ain’t been 
burnt, nor filled up with poisons, that’s 
makin’ them ache in every joint. 
Those folks are singin’ and glad they 
are gittin’ to the right landin’ place, 
which means happiness ferever, but 
us in our boat, dashin’ along with 
lightnin’ speed and the devil watchin’ 
us, laughin’ at our misery. We be¬ 
gin to hear the roar of somethin’ and 
wonder what it is. We don’t hear no 
laughin’ and folks beckonin’ fer others 
to follow; we only hear growns of 
terror and agony and callin’ fer help. 
And that old devil on the side, laugh¬ 
in’ almost to bust himself, gittin’ 

ready to see the final finish. 

* * * 

“Then folks who have steered right 
try to reach us. They pull out, hold 
out their hands to us, tell us what to 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


57 


do and they start to rescue, doin’ the 
best they can. They do good work, 
fer they as well as we, know we are 
cornin’ to the end, which is either a 
peaceful landin’ or a dash over the 
falls, which means destruction. Many 
folks are rescued and many others, 
poisoned and stupyfied, caught in the 
awful currant; at last, with a last cry 
of terror, disappear over the falls, 
never to be heard of again, and those 
who have obeyed orders, with the res¬ 
cued ones, sail into the peaceful har¬ 
bor, that knows no regrets, nor sor¬ 
row or sadness. 

* * * 

"‘You got the picture, you got both 
sides. What good is the devil? He 
does good if we let him, but he can’t 
be the boss, we got to do that. He 
will burn us, cook us to a frazzle, so 
we got to corner him, cage him up, 
just like we done the fire, put a red 
light around him and then dodge him. 
Be sure you make the circle big 
enough, so no bad wind nor suction 
will pull you over, so the devil makes 
a good signal light to warn us. 

* * * 

“These pleasures we buck up 
against; they ain’t got any warnin’ 
signs out, but we are surrounded with 
them. If we don’t watch out we’re 
.goin’ to git so well soaked with their 
poisons we will begin to holler and 
that mightly hard. Then if we are 
wise, before we git too bad, we got to 
call in our doctor, who will fix us 
up. So when the devil holds out these 
pleasures to us, let us find out if they 
will poison us. So we see the devil 
is doin’ us a good turn, by showin’ us 
his poisons, but we mustn’t swaller his 
bait, we got to give it the go bye and 
that quick. 

* * * 

“When we see great crowds of folks 
a laughin’ and screamin’, doin’ things 
that don’t look just right and invitin’ 


us to ‘git in the push,’ that’s where 
the devil does us another good turn; 
fer he is warnin’ us. He is tyin’ up 
our rudder, so we can’t steer. He 
wants us to fergit all about steerin’, 
so his guidin’ our boat will be done 
by his swiftflowin’ current and take 
us where he wants us to go. So don’t 
fergit to keep our steerin’ apparatus 
in good shape by callin’ on our good 
doctor to look it over; that’s the way 
we make the devil work fer us. 

* * * 

“And the laws made by the devil 
ain’t published by him. We don’t 
know we got them until they got us 
and that mighty fast. Why if the 
devil would publish on all the traps 
he sets what’s goin’ to happen if we 
hang on to them, he would have very 
few customers. Just like the spid¬ 
er’s web and the fly, we’re havin’ a 
royal old time until we git tangled 
up and we can’t move hand or foot, 
and we got to holler fer our doctor to 
git us loose. So when we see these 
webs the devil is doin’ us another 
good turn, by stringin’ them up so we 
can dodge them we git warnin’s 
enough. 

$ $ 

“So after all we can make good 
use of the devil if we want to. He 
has his good points, and those points 
are good and sharp, and if we don’t 
watch out we’re goin’ to git stabbed 
with them. He seemin’ly will tell us 
we can git lots of money, become fam¬ 
ous, have big jobs, but I tell you that 
when the end of life comes, just like 
us in the boat when we hear the roar 
of the falls and we’re in that fast and 
might current, when the rudder we 
depended on is useless, when these 
friends who surrounded us all git 
away and we are face to face with 
eternity, we will realize that the only 
good the devil can do us is to do the 
very opposite and use him fer a sig¬ 
nal light to avoid.” 


58 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


CHARACTER VS. REPUTATION 


“If My Bull Had Feathers on it Like a Canary Bird, it 
Would Have a Good Reputation,” Says Farmer John 


“I owned a big bull once,” said 
Farmer John, “that wuz a beauty, one 
of those Holstein fellows, that wuz the 
talk of our neighbors for miles around. 
Some of the envious ones told how 
wild and bad Holsteins wuz and most 
folks believed it and would run like 
fury when that bull come toward them 
in the field, in spite of the big fence 
it couldn’t jump over. 

“So when I went into the field where 
the bull wuz the folks would holler 
and say I wuz foolin’ with death, but 
I knew better. Now that is just the 
same between character and reputa¬ 
tion, those talkers gave that bull his 
reputation, but I knew its character 
and I wuz safe. 

* * * 

“Now I often thought if that bull 
had feathers on it and wuz shaped like 
a canary bird, folks would say, Hgw 
gentle he wuz, not knowin’ anything 
about its character and they would 
take a chance to cross the field and 
they wuz liable to be shot over the 
fence dern fast by that bull’s horns. 
I’m simply sayin’ this to show you the 
difference between character and rep¬ 
utation. 

* * * 

“Now its just the same way with 
folks, some folks have a rattlin’ good 
reputation and a mighty bad charac¬ 
ter, and others have a bad reputation 
and a fine character; for one is what 
we really are and the other is what 
folks say we are. Some difference 
and we got to find out which is which. 
But we can’t go wrong if our charac¬ 
ter is good and solid, for it will stand 
out like a bright and shining light, in 
spite of the ‘knockers’ that are ham¬ 
merin’ about our reputation. 


“Now the condition of the folks that 
are livin’ today is just like a lot of 
apples that my hired man Hank picked 
out for me one day. He took every 
one he saw and put them into the- 
basket and me not noticin’ them par¬ 
ticular, took them to market. When 
my customers saw them they only saw 
the bad ones, so the good apples got 
a bad reputation; it bein’ the same 
case as a good character and a bad 
reputation. That’s where many folks 
lose out, by bad associations. They 
may have good characters and be first 
rate fellers, but bad company ain’t no 
place for them kind of folks. We build 
our own character, but it’s what folks 
say about us that gives us our repu¬ 
tation and if we hanker after that sort 
of company we soon git that kind of 
a reputation. 

* * * 

“Now the question is ‘What gives 
us the good character?’ It ain’t what 
folks say about us, but what is really 
in our hearts. The formin’ of that 
character starts mighty early in life, 
just like the farmer attendin’ to his 
trees in his orchard, he has got to 
watch them, spray them, kill all the 
worms and bugs that will eat right 
into the heart of them, for when he 
does this he is protectin’ his apples 
and keepin’ them sound, givin’ them 
a good character. 

* * * 

“Now givin’ the youngsters a good 
character depends much on the parent 
and teachers. They got to spray and 
watch the kids so the evil, consumhT 
worms won't eat the good out of 
their hearts, and keep it up until the 
youngsters is able to think and de¬ 
cide for itself; for in these young- 
minds, the destinties of the world are 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


59 


in an embryo form. These bad habits, 
which we find is on all sides of us, is 
the consumin’ worms that is tryin’ to 
bore in and will ruin any world the 
good Lord ever created, if we don’t 
git out our sprayin’ cans. 

* * * 

“The trouble is there is too many 
folks too particular about their repu¬ 
tations and not about their character. 
All they want is to have folks shout 
from the housetops how good they are, 
but right down in their own hearts 
they can feel the consumin’ worms de¬ 
stroyin’ their character. They will 
fight for years to keep these worms 
from cornin’ to light, but when they 
do, somethin’ busts and that lovely 
reputation they took so much pains 
with, is all tarnished and gone in one 
night, just because they had no char¬ 
acter. 

* * * 

“Come to think about it there 
wouldn’t be so many skin games goin’ 
on in this world if folks would pay 
more attention to character than to 
reputation, simply because they don’t 
go deep enough to see the solid 
foundation, just like I did once when 
a feller showed me some pictures of 
a farm. It looked fine, so I put up my 
cash and got it, but, gee whiz, when 
I went to it and seen it, there wuz 
nothin’ but bogs and rocks, that I 
couldn’t even use it for pasture. I 
took the reputation and not the char¬ 
acter. 

* * * 

“Then look at Hank. One day he 
goes into the city and a feller sells 
him a ring which just looked like gold 
and swore it wuz gold. Hank bit and 
separated himself from $1.87 for a 
piece of metal that turned green the 
next day and wuzn’t worth two cents. 
Hank took the reputation of gold for 
the real thing, because the ring that 
Hank bought had the reputation of 

gold but not the character. 

* * * 

“I bought a dog one time which was 
recommended as a good watch dog. 
It was a fierce lookin’ animal, so I paid 
the price and took it home and turned 
it loose. I soon found out about the 


only thing that hound would watch 
was meal times and the grub we flung 
at it. It wuz so dern lazy it wouldn’t 
even scratch the fleas that wuz on it. 
So in spite of its looks it had no char¬ 
acter to back it up. I thought from 
the looks of it a stone wall would be 
pie for it or it would chew up any¬ 
thing that looked cross-eyed at it, but 
the pesky thing would let the rats 
play all over it. I had to send it to. 
the dog pound. 

* * * 

“If we want to be happy and enjoy 
life we must have a good character, 
and with that comes the reputation, 
which you get from those that associ¬ 
ate with you. It is this reputation 
that your friends place confidence in,, 
your family and employers vouch for,, 
and if you want to stab them to the 
heart, just let them know that you are- 
only reputation and have no charac- * 
ter, just like Hank’s ring. 

* * * 

“Among the things that are demand¬ 
ed to establish character, is to be up¬ 
right and honest. No one ever saw 
yet a supportin’ post for a big build- 
in’ that wuzn’t straight. It can’t be 
crooked, like a part of a hoop, as it 
won’t bear much weight without bend- 
in’, and the buildin’ will droop and get 
weakened. So if you want to weaken, 
our character just let us fool away our 
time in idleness and pleasures that 
eat into our hearts, and we will be¬ 
come nothin’ but a nuisance and get 

on the level with the brute character. 

* * * 

“This world is progressin’ all the- 
time. As the years roll on construc¬ 
tion never stops and there ain’t no¬ 
time to fool with curved posts to stick 
in the foundations. It can’t be solid, 
it ain’t got any character, it can’t 
stand the strain when our life’s build- 
in’ is risin’ higher and higher each- 
day. Your posts of character must be 
trusted, integrity, truth, benevolence 
and justice, all mean somethin’ to it. 
Your character must stand the strain, 
they mustn’t bend or break; if they 
do your years of work will be de¬ 
stroyed in one day, just the same as- 
when that great volcano of Vesuvius; 


€0 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


broke loose and in one short day swal¬ 
lowed up Pompeii, with all its beau¬ 
tiful buildings, works of art and thou¬ 
sands of its people. That volcano had 
a good reputation but no character. 

* * * 

“The one who has true character 
ain’t dependin’ on someone else, any 
more than you are dependin’ on your 
crooked foundation props. For what 
he is today, he will be tomorrow. You 
know what he is, you don’t have to 
fish and hunt and wonder to know 
what he will do, for if you have any 
sense at all, you know what his course 
will be. He ain’t dodgin’ any cor¬ 
ners, he goes on a straight line, he 
does his own thinkin’ and ain’t a tool 
for anybody. If someone gives his 
character props a good solid crack 
they can’t even be dented, they are 
too sound; no worms consumin’ his 
heart, because they are like the tow¬ 
ers of a city, a guide to all. 

* * * 

“Many young folks in the spring of 
life neglects his mind and heart and 
if he goes up against bad practices 
and vices he is invitin’ the worms to 
eat his character. At first he will 
regret it but if continued he will let 
them gnaw and gnaw, never noticin’ 
it until it is almost too late to re¬ 
pair the damage. So guard the early 
part of your life and the future years 
will be well protected. Young fo v 
don’t think that these things count, 
but they do. I knew a young feller 
that took some money that wuzn’t h : 
and although he repented and paid it 
back 40 years after, folks that knew 
about it like to tell the story of how 
this young feller went wrong; never 
forgettin’ nor forgivin’ that one wrong 
thing done. Just like a colt I owned. 
One day when I wuzn’t lookin’ it gave 
me a shot with its hind legs and I 
never forgot it, although I had that 
animal for 15 years after. 

* * * 

“A good character don’t grow in one 
night, anymore than my wheat does; 
it takes time to make it grow, it takes 
cultivation to get a big crop but all 
my work won’t amount to anything 
if the destroyin’ worms or a fire gets 


at it. We read about a wonderful 
gourd that grew in one night to shade 
a prophet’s head. Character don’t 
grow like that, but just like that same 
gourd, it can be destroyed in one 
night. 

“If we want our character to grow, 
to be fruitful, we got to put our roots 
in congenial soil so it will grow. It 
must get its life from life-giving asso¬ 
ciations; it must be watered from a 
livin’ spring of the pure and the good 
and not from the foul or the filthy. It 
must withstand the torrents of evil 
influences, that are always dashin’ 
around us, for the branches we bring 
forth will grow stronger and stronger 
and will prove a haven for those who 
come after us. 

* * * 

“We must never forget our destina¬ 
tion and for what we were created. 
Everything we get in this world and 
what we will obtain in the future de¬ 
pends on our character. The popu¬ 
lar belief that any old thing will do 
should be discarded. If young folks 
want to be successful there is no use 
of wishin’ they had what someone else 
has worked hard for. To enjoy the 
fruits of a well-spent life these old 
folks have went through the battle 
of life successfully and are reaping 
their reward, they are entitled to it. 
So lay out your own path, hew your 
way carefully build your own charac¬ 
ter and then stick to it. 

* * * 

“You can’t go to sleep, you must not 
lag, success is not measured by hours. 
There never was a successful man 
yet who will tell you that you need to 
work only a certain number of hours 
a day. Success is a continuous per¬ 
formance, it is continual diggin’ and 
hustlin’ and plannin’; it means the 
dodgin ot bad influences; it means 
jgood associations; it means fillin’ your 
mind with the right kind of readin’ 
and studyin’ and above all it means 
W ORK and WORK HARD, and you 
will build a character and a reputation 
and obtain success that will never fail, 
even if assailed on all sides, for you 
are protected by love and affection 
against which enemies are powerless.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


61 


“THIS LAND OF OURS” 


By Setting the Proper Example We Can Make Law-abiding 
Citizens Out of These Foreigners 


“I was a readin’ in the papers the 
other day that about 30,000 folks from 
the other side had landed with us, 
let loose to go where they pleased, 
most of them with one idea in their 
mind, to make money, some of them 
promisin’ to send some back to the 
folks left at home. Now I’d give a dol¬ 
lar to know just what they wuz think- 
in’ about and how they wuz a goin’ 
to git it,” remarked Farmer John at 
one of his visits at my office. 

* * * 

“That is a problem many men would 
like to know,” I answered, “for if we 
did we would know how to handle 
them. What do you think about it?” 

“Well, I can’t say, but all I can do 
is to put myself in their place and 
get my own opinion about it. Now in 
the first place, when I got the idea 
to come to this country I could only 
think of the money I would make and 
how I could take care of the folks and 
make them happy; so in the begin - 
nin’ I must have good thoughts about 
the place,” replied the Farmer, “but 
it seems to me that when I wuz here 
a little time my idees would change. 

* * * 

“Now, how could I have good 
thoughts after I wuz here a while. Of 
course I would make more money than 
I did on the other side, but it appears 
to me I’d no more’n git it before some¬ 
one else would want it, just like one 
of my old hens findin’ a worm; she 
don’t no more’n git it than every 
cackler in the yarn wuz tryin’ to git 
a peck at it, and if the old hen wuzn’t 
mighty quick on the swaller, no lunch 
fer her. 


“I’ve been in some of these furri- 
ner’s houses,” continued the Farmer,, 
“and they wuz packed in like a lot of 
pups in a small dog house, all stretch¬ 
ed out on the floor, almost sleepin’ on 
top of each other. The feller that 
had the longest legs wuz at a disad¬ 
vantage, fer they stuck out too far 
and got mixed up with someone else’s 
pins. Now it seems to me if I wuz 
one of those fellers and had left a 
good home and had to sleep like that, 
I would begin to think a little. 

* * * 

“Then when I would go to work, the 
boss, would be after me hot, because 
I don’t work any faster and begin to 
scold and swear at me, and while I 
could not understand what he said 
I knew he wuz swearin’, because that 
is the first thing a furriner under¬ 
stands and learns, is how to swear. 
That would make me feel a little more 
sorer and I wouldn’t have such good 
feelin’s that I had before, I would be 
gittin’ worse. 

* * * 

“Now it appears to me that when I 
got to my sleepin’ place at night, all 
tired out, then some of my friends 
would tell me how to make more 
money by takin’ things easy and doin’ 
things the law said I shouldn’t. I 
would begin to listen, fer wuzn’t 1 
treated mean and had to work like 
fury, cursed and sworn at, all because 
I wuzn’t born in this country, and 
wuzn’t even human. I think I would 
take a chance and do it. 

* * * 

“Now if I got caught at it, then 
my friends would take me to a lawyer 
and after givin’ him some money, he 
would git me off easy. Then I would 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


<62 


go at it again, but I would be gittin’ 
more foxey and wouldn’t be makin’ 
the mistakes I did before and I soon 
would be able to send money to the 
folks on the other side. That is about 
the average story of every furriner 
•that comes here. 

* * * 

“Now we got our buildin’ laws. Why 
-don’t the folks that own houses and 
tenements be made to fix them up 
Tight, so these furriners can live 
right. Almost all of these landlords 
want the money, they wouldn’t drive a 
nail to keep the shack from failin’ 
•down and they git away with it. It 
won’t take the furriner long to git next 
to that condition; if the natives can 
violate the law, why couldn’t they do 
it. So they go at it; they have the ex¬ 
ample and foller it. 

* * * 

“Of course sometimes they git in¬ 
vited to church, but more times they 
don't. Our native folks are too proud 
to sit beside a furriner, even if it is 
in a church, so that don’t do much 
good. They hear about the good and 
what they should do, but most of them 
are gittin’ like Jim Potts; he owned a 
lot of houses and every time he gave 
money to the Lord to help convert the 
heathen, he raised his rents and got 
back twice as much as he chipped in; 
probably because he wanted to have 
them converted so he could skin them, 
if any came his way. It is wonderful 
the plannin’ and schemin’ we do to 
git money when we are at church, 
everyone thinkin’ we are listenin’ to 
sermons. So if you want to pull off 
stunts, go to church and do your 
thinkin’; lots of people do it. 

* * * 

“When the furriner takes in this fea¬ 
ture of our religious life, it don’t take 
him long to git in the same habit. And 
they git to be dandies at it, fer ain’t 
they got the example? Then besides 
the furriner gits to know folks; he 
gits next to what they do, because it 
is fashionable to go to church; it gives 
you standin’, particularly if you wear 
good clothes. So if the furriner don’t 


go there, then they might go to the 
dumps to collect stuff that is thrown 
away. He can make lots of money 
that way, which to my mind is more 
Godly than goin’ to church plannin’ to 
git the best of someone else. 

* * * 

“Now it don’t take the furriner long 
to tumble we are a nation of ‘Do as 
I say and not as I do.’ Don’t we all 
preach about the Constitution and that 
we must obey it and we are ready to 
lynch anybody that says anythin’ agin 
it, but what do we do? These furri¬ 
ners, knowin’ there is lots of money 
in makin’ booze, start at it. But who 
buys it, most of them our own citizens. 
Why from court records seventy-five 
per cent, of the folks that make booze 
are furriners. So who violates the 
Constitution? The furriners wouldn’t 
make it if the Americans wouldn’t 
buy it. Ain’t they got fine examples to 
obey the Constitution? 

* * * 

“I wuz readin’ in a paper the other 
day about a prayer an old deacon gave 
in a church that created much excite¬ 
ment, and it seemed to me just about 
right. He told the Lord that he 
wished the aliens to be informed what 
a good thing they were missing by 
not becoming citizens of this grand 
country of ours. He said, ‘There isn’t 
anything like it under the sun. Come 
over and see this beautiful land of 
the free, land of churches pointing 
skyward and thousands of bootleggers 
and speakeasies. Bibles and guns, 
houses of prayer and dens of vice, 
millionaires and paupers, clergymen 
and thieves, deacons and liars, Chris- 
tains and cut-throats, trusts and 
tramps, money and misers, homes and 
hunger, virtue and vice.’ 

“ ‘Thou who knowest everything, yet 
knowest nothing, will you be so kind 
as to transfer to the furriners that a 
Bible can be bought for 25 cents and 
booze is passed around under the 
shadow of coat tails, where we have 
men in Congress with three wives and 
a number in jail for having two, where 
we make canned beef out of horses 
and sick cows and corpses out of our 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


63 


soldier boys, where we put a man in 
jail for stealing a goose from off the 
common and make a United States 
Senator out of the one who steals the 
common from the goose. 

44 ‘Where we have 400 men makin’ 
laws for our country and a court of 
nine men to set them aside, where bad 
whiskey makes bad men and bad men 
makes bad whiskey, where newspapers 
*re paid for suppressing the truth and 
made rich by telling a lie. Yea, in this 
Christian land, preachers are paid $5,- 
000 per year to dodge the devil and 
tickle the ear of the wealthy and poli¬ 
tician, where trusts hold you up and 
poverty holds you down, where the 
girl who goes wrong is made an out¬ 
cast and her male friend, the prodigal, 
is made a gentlemen and invited into 
society, where men vote for one thing 
one day and cuss it the other 364. 

* * * 

“ ‘Where we have prayers on the 
floor of our capitol buildings and 
whiskey in the cellars, where we spend 
$5,000 to bury a Congressman and $10 
to bury an honest workingman who is 
poor. Yes, in this land where to be 
virtuous is to be called lonesome and 
to be honest is to be called a crank, 
where churches make Christians and 
honest men make infidels, where we 
pay $15,000 for a dog and 15 cents a 
dozen to a poor woman for making 
shirts, where in four of our large 
cities 35,000 of our young ladies pay 
$6.00 per week for board and are com¬ 
pelled to work for $5.00, where in New 
York City 37,000 women are making a 
livin’ for their husbands. Ye, Lord 
God, have the aliens come to us, for 
we have more guns, more whiskey and 
more Bibles than we can make use of, 
for we can give them a dose of relig¬ 
ion, but a larger dose of hell. 

* * * 

“ ‘We have a 100,000 churches in 
which to preach about God Almighty 
and a million devoted to vice and de- 
gredation, we make thousands of laws 
each year and have 200,000 lawyers to 
■show us how to dodge them, we have 
schools and jails, palaces and poor 


houses, until we are in one great tan¬ 
gled mess’ 

* * * 

“With this condition and the ex¬ 
amples we set, how can we expect 
the furriner to be a law-abidin’ person. 
He follers what he sees and does just 
like we do. Is it any wonder things 
look so upset. Is it any wonder that 
we hear so much about our govern¬ 
ment and that it is no good, all be¬ 
cause we don’t set the example. Why 
if we went to these furriners’ country, 
wouldn’t we do just the same as them? 
Wouldn’t we pull off the same stunts 
to git money? We wouldn’t give a 
rap fer their laws, if they didn’t. And 
its just the same case with them. 

* * * 

“We live in a great country and it is 
a wonder to every thinkin’ person how 
we git along as well as we do. The 
reason is, we still have good folks a 
watchin’ and prayin’ fer it and it’s 
this influence that keeps us on the 
right path. Although we are stagger¬ 
in’ and twistin’, we are goin’ forward, 
in spite of the evil conditions that 
surround us. Just think, we are one 
of the youngest nations on this earth. 
It wuz always a haven of security fer 
those who wanted to git along and 
have a happy home. It is the strong¬ 
est government today on the face of 
the earth, and all because of the pray¬ 
in’ and watchin’ of the true men and 
women whose influence still steers our 
great ship. 

* * * 

“No country can be stronger than 
its people. No law-maker will be any 
greater than the folks that elected 
him. We can’t expect our legislators 
to be saints, when we are sinners. Ii 
we are crooked in our dealin’s with 
others, they will be the same. So if 
these furriners come here and foller 
our example, we want to be very sure 
we give them the right one, so they 
can’t make any mistake. 

* * * 

“We want the furriners to come 
with us. We want them to enjoy our 
wonderful country, but we must re- 





64 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


member they are the strangers. They 
don’t know our customs, so we got to 
see they should learn our language, 
toiler our example, and see they obey 
our laws and show respect fer them. 
Show them the right way to live, see 
that the houses are right and that hu¬ 
mans can live comfortably in them. 
Don’t allow shacks, not fit fer animals 
to be their habitation. So the love 
they bear this country, which they 
had in their hearts when they first 
come here, will never grow cold. 

“We are all human, we all suffer 


the same; none of us can choose his- 
parents; none of us could read or 
write when we wuz born, we all got 
to learn and if we all do our duty as 
American citizens, everyone of that 
big army that landed on our shores 
durin’ the past few weeks, in one year 
will be able to read and write and 
speak our language. Then they will 
learn what a wonderful country they 
have come to. So let us go after them, 
watch them, show them and this coun¬ 
try as well as each one of us indi¬ 
vidually will be the gainer.” 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 




THE WHIRLIN’ CIRCLES 


“The Whole World is Nothin’ More Than Circles of Pointin’ 
Fingers, Blamin’ the Other Feller” 


“I wuz a readin’ in a book the other 
day how all these stars and suns, 
comets, planets and moons and all the 
rest of them bodies that travel through 
the sky, are shootin’ around in cir¬ 
cles; some of them round true circles, 
others oblong, some of them narrow, 
others wide, but shootin’ around in 
some kind of a circle any how,” said 
Farmer John, one day as he came into 
my office for a friendly chat. ‘‘Now 
the more I think about this condition 
the more I think that everybody on 
this earth is flyin’ around in some 
kind of circle and if we are flyin’ 
around in this shape we must be hav¬ 
in’ some center point, about which we 
are circlin’.” 

‘‘That’s quite an idea you have,” I 
answered, “but I can’t get what you 
are driving at, so let me hear what 
you have to say about it.” 

“Well,” remarked the Farmer, “tak- 
in’ the Bible fer the authority, I’m be- 
ginnin’ to think we’re all shootin’ 
around God almighty, and that is the 
point, fer when we take the first four 
words in the Bible, which says ‘In 
the beginnin’ God,’ and before any¬ 
thing wuz made ‘He wuz,’ and that 
makes the startin’ point of my rea¬ 
sonin’. 

* * * 

“Now. this book I wuz readin’ told 
me that nothin’ in the Heavens can 
git away from their circle. They 
might fly fer millions of miles away 
beyond our mortal eyes, but they’re 
still flyin’ in that circle. They got 
laws that govern them, although prob¬ 
ably we don’t understand them. Now 
to my mind, if they didn’t have them 
some of them would git an awful 
bumpin’, just like the time when I 
landed up agin a door jam one night 


in the dark. I raised a lump on my 
head about the size of a young water¬ 
melon. Now folks are just like those 
circles that these celestial bodies are 
trottin’, some of them are flyin’ 
around in a tangent. We can’t un¬ 
derstand them and it keeps us a guess- 
in’, just like a dog I once had when 
he wuz chasin’ his tail. Why man 
alive, he would fly all over the yard 
a tryin’ to grab hold of it and never 
got it, in spite of his travellin’. 

* * * 

“Now folks are just like that and 
we are hemmed in by a big bunch of 
flyin’ circles, all kinds of shapes and 
sizes, and all because man won’t 
stick to a true circle and won’t fol¬ 
low the rules given him, and that’s 
what makes the trouble in this world. 
Now if the hub of my wagon gits out 
of round and I ride in it I’m goin’ to 
git an awful bumpin’ if I’m travelin’ 
fast, and I’m goin’ to have trouble 
with it, too, and if our life is like a 
circle and it gits out of round, we’re 
goin’ to have trouble with our life’s 
wagon. Now God almighty is the axle 
and the instant we git out of line with 
that point somethin’ is goin’ to sqeak, 
then make a bigger noise and the next 
thing break. So we got to git whirlin’ 
right, see that we are flyin’ around our 
central guidin’ point, not lettin’ our 
circle wobble, like a one-legged man 
tryin’ to walk a tight rope and we will 
be all right. 

* * * 

“Why we got so many of these cir¬ 
cles a flyin’ around us that we’re all 
gittin’ twisted up, just like a mass of 
tangled rope. We poor mortals, think- 
in’ we know all about it, start to try 
and unravel this mix up. So we start 
to pull and we git holt of someone 
else’s circle and start to pull. Then 




66 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


we lose sight of our own circle and 
we git in trouble, and take our eyes 
off the center pin. Soon we hear 
nothin’ but janglin’, and scrappin’, fer 
we are beginnin’ to fool with circles 
that ain’t ours. The first thing we 
know our own circle is gittin’ like a 
loop that ain’t got any shape and we’re 
lassooin’ a bunch of folks and git them 
all tied up in a knot, so that only God 
almighty himself can unravel it, and 
some of them will have to be cut, 
thus removin’ the trouble.’ 

* * * 

“Now the longer we try to do our 
own unravellin’ the more trouble we 
git into. We begin to argue and fuss 
and talk about our neighbors and say 
how bad they are. Then we start to 
point our fingers at them and they at 
us. So it’s no wonder so many of us 
is gittin’ jabbed. Why man alive, our 
whole world is nothin’ but a regular 
forest of pointin’ fingers; everybody 
a pointin’ at someone else. Just 
imagine all these circles a whirlin’ and 
rushin’ all tangled up, pointin’ fingers 
at each other, blamin’ all the bad on 
someone else, never takin’ the trou¬ 
ble to look into our own hearts, to see 
if we wuz wrong, but usin’ our eyes 
to find out the doin’s of others. Say 
we’re a fine bunch of Sherlock Holmes 
when it comes to someone else, but 
blind so far as ourselves are con¬ 
cerned. 

* * * 

“We got so far with these whirlin’ 
circles we’re formin’ all kinds of soci¬ 
eties, so we can keep them a whirlin’ 
faster. We’re thinkin’ in our little 
puny way we’re goin’ to change every¬ 
thing, ignorin’ the good Lord who has 
told us, He is the only one that can 
do it. But to show how smart we 
are and how little the Lord knows, and 
He never did know anything and prob¬ 
ably never will, accordin’ to some 
folks, we work like fury to make our 
circle bigger, so we can git things 
a cornin’ our way. Just when we think 
we got things just about right, some¬ 
thin’ lets loose and our great big cir¬ 
cle is busted up into a lot of little 
ones and we’re worse off than ever. 


“Why, you remember away back 
centuries ago, after God almighty told 
the folk there wouldn’t be any more 
floods and made the rainbow to show 
that it wuz a solemn promise, the folks 
wouldn’t believe it; so they started to 
build a big tower. They wuz goin’ to 
fool God almighty. But just look how 
easy He stopped it, by just makin’ 
folks talk different languages. Be¬ 
cause of that attempt to think that 
they had been told a lie, us folks to 
this day have got to study like fury 
if we want to know what other nations 
tell us, just because those foolish folks 
wouldn’t believe God almighty. It 
seems to me that when us folks now 
days hear these different languages 
spoken, it would remind us that we 
mustn’t forget God almighty and what 
He has promised. Now those folks 
away back years ago wanted a circle 
of their own and got it. 

* * * 

“Why only a few years ago didn’t 
the Kaiser start a whirlin’ circle of 
his own, thinkin’ he wuz goin’ to be 
the big chief in this world because 
he had a wonderful trained army; in 
spite of the fact that the Bible told 
him that there never would be an¬ 
other nation on earth that would rule 
it, after the downfall of the Roman 
Empire. But the Kaiser knew more 
than God Almighty and the conse¬ 
quence wuz we got more whirlin’ cir¬ 
cles around our heads, than we bar¬ 
gained for and the Kaiser had to beat 
it mighty quick, with his family all 
broken up, scattered everywhere. Say, 
the Bible and history is full of these 
kinds of whirlin’ circles, for our lit¬ 
tle eyes can’t see any further than 
the end of our nose, when it comes to 
launchin’ a circle in which we plan 
to be the center pin and git every¬ 
thing a whirlin’ around us. It can’t 
be done. 

* * * 

“You see these whirlin’ circles, orig¬ 
inated by the people, are bein’ copied 
by the nations and they are gittin’ 
mixed up in the mess also, fer there 
wuz a time when these nations had 
the idee they could do as they pleased 
and that they owned the seas and the 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


67 


land and they could kill everybody 
that strolled into their territory. Now 
hasn’t God almighty told us through 
the Bible that He owns the whole 
earth, everything on it, in it and over 
it, because He made it. But as the 
nations got stronger and stronger they 
forgot all this. They didn’t know they 
wuz buildin’ a mountain of gunpow¬ 
der, that someone wuz liable to touch 
it off at the wrong time, when some 
other circle got mixed up with theirs. 
Then bang, that powerful nation wuz 
all busted up into small ones, just like 
a big balloon filled with gas, a little 
puncture and farewell balloon. 

* * * 

“Why every person on this whole 
earth is shootin’ around his circle and 
we’re all a whirlin’ it. Everyone of 
us must choose our path to whirl it in 
and we don’t watch whether we git 
in the road of anyone else or not. If 
we do, we try to push it aside, so we 
ean have a clean sweep and git our 
own private circle a whirlin’ and this 
causes the tanglin’. Now suppose the 
earth, planets, moon and the sun 
should be allowed to do the same 
thing; I’ll bet inside of two hours this 
little earth of ours would be either 
smashed up into bits or burned up by 
bumpin’ into the sun, and our whole 
universe would be knocked endways. 
But God almighty says, ‘Nothin’ doin’,’ 
and they got to stay where they wuz 
put. 

* * * 

“But us folks, in spite of the warn- 
in’s we git and the examples we have, 
are goin’ ahead like a bunch of wild 
steers, not lookin’ out where we are 
headed or where our circle is flyin’, 
not watchin’ our centre pin, doin’ just 


as we please. When we think we got 
everything just whirlin’ right and we 
are are the real king pin, we git tan¬ 
gled up in such a wad that we could¬ 
n’t recognize our own grandmother 
if she walked right on our toes. After 
we realize that we are helpless, all 
mixed up and our friends and enemies 
have yanked and pulled, tugged and 
strained, until it’s a regular maze of 
whizzin’ lines, then we got to call on 
God almighty to straighten us out and 
git goin’ agin, and just as soon as we 
do then we begin to watch other peo¬ 
ple once more and we soon are jus! 
as bad as ever. Now ain’t that travel- 
lin’ circles all over agin? 

* * * 

“This universe is chuck full of flyin’ 
circles. Those in the Heavens aro 
under the control of God almighty and 
they got to stick to His laws, but 
those on this earth are under the con¬ 
trol of man, but even they can’t git 
away from the great center pin. Every 
nation, race, individual is doin’ this 
whirlin’ act, but each of us is watch¬ 
in’ the other and fergittin’ all about 
the never changin’ center pin, around 
which we ought to revolve. Now if 
all these circles were true ones, ab¬ 
solutely round, not bulged, elongated 
or egg shaped, each of them a whirlin’ 
in the right path, there wouldn’t be 
any collisions, in spite of this mass 
of whirlin’ circles. They would never 
git tangled, because each one of us 
would be a watchin’ his own circle and 
not someone else’s, keepin’ it steady 
and true, with his eyes on the great 
center pin, as outlined in the Bible, 
and not havin’ his eyes glued on his 
neighbor. What a magnificent and en¬ 
joyable world we would be livin’ in to¬ 
day. Isn’t that correct?” 


68 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


FARMIN’ 


We Are a Bunch of Punk Farmers Judgin’ From the Crops 

We Turn Out 


“Well, I see you are still at the 
farmin’ game,” remarked Farmer 
John one day, when he strolled into 
my office. “I see you are plowin’ and 
sowin’ seeds, gittin’ ready fer a crop 
that’ll keep things movin’ at your 
home.” 

“I think you have called my work 
cut of its proper name,” I replied. 
“I’m not farming; as I am a business 
man, not a farmer.” 

“Now that’s just where you make 
a mistake. You are a business man and 
besides that you are a farmer, just 
the same, and you’ll agree with me if 
you just stop to think a little. I see 
you writin’ letters and givin’ orders 
and all that. And what fer? Just 
to get ready to harvest your crop of 
money to buy your food, pay your 
bills and keep your family comforta¬ 
ble. Now ain’t you?” 

* * * 

“Well, if you call that farming, I 
must admit I am,” I answered. “But 
still I don’t quite understand why you 
class me as a farmer, so give me your 
opinion of it.” 

“Now look here, you are writin’ let¬ 
ters and applyin’ it to farmin’ life. 
You are either sowin’ seeds or you 
are plowin’, gittin’ ready to do it, and 
by doin’ it you expect to git a return 
of more business, just the same as I 
do when I plow and put in the seeds. 
Both of us is waitin’ fer the crop; 
you, in money and business, and me, 
in more farm truck, so I can sell it 
and git the money to do the same 
thing with it as you, therefore both 
cf us are farmin’.” 


“Now if you want to git a good croi> 
of business you got to send out the 
right kind of letters, ones that will 
show folks how much good you can 
do if they deal with you. Those let¬ 
ters have to be right or you won’t 
git any crop, and my seeds have got 
to be right or I won’t git any. Now 
what is the difference? You can take 
any kind of a job, or position, in this 
whole world and everyone of them is 
held by farmers. There ain’t no 
sense in folks callin’ us farmers just 
because we plow up the soil and put 
in seeds when you folks are diggin’ 
up the big farm of business and put¬ 
tin’ in yours. 

* * * 

“And when you folks begin to jeer 
at us, who live in the country, enjoyin’ 
the beautiful green fields, the leaf- 
draped trees, the flowers, with the 
singin’ of the birds, you ain’t got much 
to laugh at; when you look out of your 
windows and see nothin’ but brick 
walls, or the inside of some one’s 
house through the windows, because 
they ain’t got the window blinds pulled 
down and you sniff the air, tainted 
with smoke, accompanied by the rat¬ 
tle of trolley cars, automobile horns 
and the slammin’ of doors. I think 
we are the ones to do the jeerin’ when 
it comes to that. 

* * * 

“Now this farmin’ business is a seri¬ 
ous question and it should be soaked 
home with sledge hammer blows to 
make every blessed one realize we are 
farmers, nothin’ more nor less. But 
the more I think of it, the more I’m 
beginnin’ to think we are a pretty 
bunch of punk farmers, fer the crops 
we’re raisin’ are nothin’ to be proud 
of, judgin’ from the crops turned out. 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


69 


by our police courts and the number 
of lolks that are put in storage in our 
jails and penitentiaries, to keep them 
from plantin’ bum seeds that brings 
nothin* but trouble fer the whole 
world. 

* * * 

“Now those fellers we got cooped 
up in those strong cages have a mania 
fer sowin’ the seeds of weeds. Why 
man alive there are no plants in the 
whole world that can bring out more 
seeds than weeds and scatter them 
quicker and git a half dozen crops, 
while the good seeds that give us life 
give but one. That is just the way 
with folks that don’t care what they 
do or say, we can’t control the other 
feller’s tongue any more than we can 
boss the waggin’ of a dog’s tail or the 
brayin’ of a jackass. We don’t mind 
a dog waggin’ its tail, but when folks 
begin to wiggle their tongues and say 
things that ain’t right, its just as 
annoyin’ as the music from the jack 
when it is in good trim. 

* * * 

“Sowin’ the seeds of these weeds is 
what’s doin’ the mischief and the good 
Lord only knows where those seeds 
are goin’ to sprout up, as some folks 
have peculiar idees about doin’ things, 
just like my hired man Hiram when 
he thought it would be funny to put a 
bent pin on the parson’s chair when 
he wuz standin’ up prayin’ and what 
the parson said when the pin sunk in 
just fitted in with the prayer; al¬ 
though it wuz much more emphatic. 
Now Hiram wuz sowin’ bad seeds in 
the shape of that pin, fer he destroyed 
the peace of mind of the parson and 
the congregation at the same time. 

* * * 

“There are a good many folks who 
think they ain’t got any influence but 
I’m beginnin’ to think there ain’t such 
an animal, fer its a very poor dog that 
ain’t got one friend and when they 
git that idee then they don’t care what 
they say or do. They don’t think that 
somebody’s a watchin’ them, noticin’ 
what they do and how they act; some¬ 
one is goin’ to take it up and talk 
about it. Then we find out those very 


same folks have lots of helpers to 
scatter the same kind of seeds, just 
like weeds, and up comes the crops. 

* * * 

“Our big cities are full of these 
kinds of farmers; teemin’ with them. 
They forgit that other folks have 
rights as well as themselves, so all 
they think about is gittin’ money and 
sow those kinds of seeds, believin’ in 
the old motto ‘Git money honestly if 
you can, but git it and git it quick.’ 
They are actin’ just like a pack of 
hound dogs I used to own when it 
come to feed time and I pitched their 
food out to them. The ones that wuz- 
n’t liglitnin’ on the swaller, wuz the 
ones that got left. They didn’t have 
time to chew it but gulped it down. 
That grub disappeared as fast as if 
I dumped it in the well. I think half 
of them died from dyspepsy. These 
fellers who are always after money 
do the same thing, fer when they see 
money they will try to git it, even 
if they have to put you out of business 
with a club. 

* * * 

“These kind of folks are sowin’ bad 
seeds, raisin’ a crop of weeds and 
some of them git coralled and git 
shoved into the storage plant. Now 
they don’t think that the winter of 
life is fast approachin’. They think 
that everybody is agin them. They 
don’t try to work honestly and try to 
be happy. They are always wishin’, 
just like Josiah Botts, who almost goes 
mad when he sees roast turkey or a 
hunk of pie. If he can sneak it, you 
watch out fer Josiah if he’s anywhere 
around. Josiah does his farmin’ in 
his stomach most of the time. But 
they all are sowin’ the seeds of dis¬ 
content, selfishness and wickedness 
and it won’t take long to find out what 
kind of crops they will reap when the 
harvest comes. 

* * * 

“I can talk all day about bad farm¬ 
in’ so if you look around you can see 
it yourself. If you want to know about 
how to farm, just read the Bible, fer 
its the best book you can git on the 
subject. It gives an account of the 
first farmin’ that wuz ever done. Old 


70 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


Satan sowed the first seeds when he 
got in the crop of curiosity and Eve 
harvested it with the consequence 
that Adam and her had to move out 
of the G-arden of Eden, prodded by a 
flamin’ sword. When they hit the 
main road and got a good look at 
each other they decided to make some 
clothes first. Of course there wuz no 
hurry about it, fer there wuz no peep¬ 
in’ Toms around, but probably the 
bugs wuz somewhat annoyin’. After 
that Adam started to do real farmin’ 
and kept it up until he died. 

* * * 

“But it’s the same old story. Folks 
would sooner take the devil’s idee of 
farmin’ than God Almighty’s, fer there 
is a big difference in the farmin’ busi¬ 
ness. The good seeds that the Bible 
tells about will produce a crop that 
will last forever, while old Satan’s 
only bring sorrow and death. But 
some folks think they are so very 
clever they think they can sow the 
devil’s seeds and raise a crop that 
will please God Almighty, just like as 
if someone would give you a crack on 
the nose then apologize and ask you 
if it hurt, at the same time give you 
another one. Now the sooner folks 
realize they can’t walk in a straight * 
line without wobblin’ and the good old 
Bible is the only guide, the better it 
is fer all of us. 

* * * 

“Take the little children fer in¬ 
stance. There never wuz one born 
yet that could read or write and never 
will be. So we got to take these lit¬ 
tle tots and sow the right kind of 
seeds in their hearts so they will 
raise the right kind of crops. The 
parents are the first to git a crack at 
that virgin soil. Everything the par¬ 
ent does, those kids sees; seeds are 
bein’ sowed. Parents can’t run out 
.every night, go to dances and parties, 
leavin’ the kids with hired folks, who 
also do some of the sowin’ act on the 
quiet. Why there is so much of this 
done that the parents don’t know any¬ 
thing more about their children than 
my tomcat does about a Hottentot’s 
bull dog. In a home like that the kids 
grow up wild, just like the weeds; the 


little heart gits as hard as a rock and 
it will take dynamite to pulverize it. 
So keep the homes right, fer its the 
farm of our country’s future crops and 
we all have a hand in it. 

* * * 

“The school is a big farmin’ place 
and the teachers are farmers, fer the 
child’s mind must be cultivated and 
pruned, to git good results. When the 
young folks go out into the world they 
meet with all kinds of sowers of seeds, 
fer everybody they come in contact 
with is sowin’ seeds of good or bad. 
It don’t make any difference whose 
child it is, the seeds we sow goes right 
into that virgin soil. We don’t see the 
crops ourselves sometimes, but the 
kid knows where they got the seeds 
alright. They can’t fergit the sowin’ 
of those seeds God Almighty will hold 
us accountable fer; so watch out. 

* * * 

“Every act we do, every trick we 
pull off, everything we say is sowin’ 
seeds and will bring out some kind of 
crop. We will sow these seeds until 
our time is come on this earth. So if 
we want to be successful, I don’t 
mean that the good Lord has promised 
to make millionaires out of everyone 
of us but I do mean that if we want 
the good Lord to look after us, we got 
to sow His seeds and do right. We 
got to follow His teachin’s. I wuz 
readin’ in a book the other day about 
the worms that crawl under the earth 
and these very worms plows up more 
than ten tons of earth each year and 
helps the crops along. Why even 
they are doin’ all they can to help 
humanity. They don’t make any 
noise, they don’t shout and yell and 
tell what they are a doin’ and swear 
they are the most honest worms in the 
world, fer we can’t see them except we 
dig fer them. 

* * * 

“If we were more like these worms, 
doin’ our bit and then keep quiet, we 
would be better off; fer we won’t, if 
we had to dig ten tons of earth every 
year of our lives we would hear so 
much preachin’ about it that we would 
be dreamin’ about mussed up mud and 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


71 


nothin’ else. So if we continue to 
sow the devil’s seeds, we’re goin’ to 
git in Dutch with our great Creator 
sure. 

* * * 

“The people ain’t doin’ all this sow- 
in’, fer the great nations of the earth 
takin’ a hand in it; calling themselves 
Christian nations, armin’ themselves 
with guns and powder and all kinds of 
killin’ tools and ready to tear each 
other to pieces if they can git the 
bulge on another nation or grab some 
land from it. Why we are gittin’ like 
the Israelites of old, settin’ up the 
golden calf and worshippin’ it instead 
of God Almighty, who has told us 
‘The earth is the Lord’s’ and we don’t 


believe it. We brought nothin’ into 
this world and we can’t take anything 
out; we have to leave everything be¬ 
hind us, which is a rattlin’ good thing 
fer us who is still livin’ or we’d be 
up against it. 

* * * 

“So all we can do is to pay atten¬ 
tion to our farmin’, see that our seeds 
are the right kind and try and raise 
a crop that will make the world bet¬ 
ter fer us havin’ lived in it. Sow the 
seeds of kindness and joy, love and 
happiness, that means so much to the 

travellers who we leave behind us 

and who are fightin’ their way to the 

glorious life beyond the grave.” 


72 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 




GAS 


The Gas Wells in the Back Yards and on the Porches and 

What They Do 


“I heard a story one time,” said 
Farmer John, at one of our interest¬ 
ing talks in my office, to which he 
was always a welcome visitor, “about 
a gas well that wuz struck on a farm 
in Western Pennsylvania that inter¬ 
ested me very much and when I thunk 
it over acd begun to revolve it in my 
mind I couldn’t help thinking there 
wuz a good lesson in it fer us, when 
I got to comparin’ things. The story 
wuz this: 

“A man who had a small farm and 
a shack, that he called a home, had 
a caller one day who told him about 
the money he could make if he would 
let them sink a gas well on his place. 
So he consented and the well wuz 
drilled. When it wuz down about a 
thousand feet or so, out shot the gas 
with an awful pressure. It blowed the 
tools high up in the air and made a 
noise that could be heard fer two 
miles, just like the hissin’ of steam. 
Every light and all the fire wuz put 
out fer fear of an explosion. Thou¬ 
sands of folks rushed to see it, fer 
the experts claimed it wuz the biggest 
thing in the natural gas line that ever 
wuz uncovered. 

* * * 

“It took a week or so before the 
gas could be controlled. All the big 
gas companies wanted to lease it right 
away, payin’ fer it by the thousand 
feet as it passed through the meters. 
Then this farmer begun to see things 
and spend his money before he got it, 
and his wife could see an easier life 
fer her and a nice new house. Why 
that gas wuz so strong and flew out 
of the pipes so hard that the frost 
actually stuck on the outside of them 
and it wuz right in the summer, too. 


“Then the gas company got busy. 
But before they could git everything 
arranged the flow of gas stopped all at 
once. All that farmer had left wuz 
a trampled down lawn and a farm 
that wuz covered with mud, sand and 
other stuff that comes out of a hole 
a half mile deep, makin’ it an awful 
lookin’ mess and almost ruinin’ his 
farm fer growin’ purposes. He wuz told 
that great gas well, that promised so 
much, wuz nothin’ but a pocket of gas 
and it had blowed itself out and there 
wuz nothin’ in it fer him and the man 
that sunk it lost all his money a doin’ 
it. 

* * * 

“Then I wuz told there wuz differ¬ 
ent kinds of gas wells; some of them 
come easy like, with a little sort of a 
hissin’ and others have to be pumped, 
so as to make the gas come out. Now 
I wuz sorry fer the man that thought 
he wuz goin’ to git rich from this gas, 
but didn’t and I ain’t rejoicin’ when 
I say that those gas wells are just like 
folks who are nothin’ but gas, that 
don’t pay them or anybody else, be¬ 
cause it’s mighty dangerous to have 
fire about when this gas is lettin’ loose 
all over the neighborhood, as there 
might be an explosion. 

* * * 

“Then agin these walkin’ gas wells 
git folks’ hopes raised away up, makin’ 
them do things they shouldn’t and 
then there is a bust. Now fer instance 
you take folks that makes a big noise 
and tell us what they are a goin’ to 
do and how much money they are 
goin’ to make and how smart they are 
and when the times comes fer them to 
git action and rake in this money and 
pile it in bales, they just petered out 
and begun to borrow money to help 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


73 


them out until they git started agin, 
but some how they never start, so it is 
nothin’ but gas and they loose out. 

* * * 

“Just like my hired man Hiram. 
He invented a collar button and wuz 
so in love with it that he could see 
my barn stacked with gold. He told 
me it wuz the greatest thing that ever 
wuz and there wuz 25,000,000 in this 
country and every one of them wore 
collar buttons, and if he sold them 
so he could make a cent a piece on 
them he would have $250,000 all clear 
profit, and if I would help him sell 
them he would give me fifty cents 
right away. Of course I took the fifty 
and I wuz the only man that ever 
made anything on those buttons. I 
wore one once and it jabbed a hole 
right in the back of my neck so I 
don’t blame folks fer not wearin’ 
them. 

* * * 

“Hiram must a got out a dose of 
gas and blew up, but he ain’t any 
worse than those folks who are al¬ 
ways gabbin’ what they done years 
back. I can see them right now, squat- 
tin’ on a barrel or perched in some¬ 
one’s front room and then they spout, 
shootin’ off about a thousand yards a 
minute about what they done and how 
much money they had made, and that 
little crowd of listeners are all ears. 
No, I didn’t say they wuz jackasses, 
because they had ears, but they wuz 
great on the swaller, because they 
gulped down everything that the ora¬ 
tor exuded and not one of them had 
brains enough to ask if that feller 
made so much money why didn’t he 
pay his bills? That question generally 
stumps them, and if you looked close 
you’d see that probably his pants 
needed fixin’, particularly under his 
coat tails, which showed how he 
worked the hardest. Another petered- 
out walkin’ gas well. 

* * * 

“Then we have fellers who come 
along after we worked hard to git 
things goin’ right and tell us what 
dern fools we wuz and how we wuz 
mussin’ up everything and if we would 


do things their way we would made 
a million dollars. Probably when 
they wuz a talkin’ they wuz sittin’ on 
a fence and the sweat would be rollin’ 
off you from workin’, but if you be¬ 
gin to ask questions you’d soon find 
out they ain’t got brains enough to 
drive my pigs into the pen, fer it takes 
some engineerin’ to do that or else 
they have been hangin’ onto some¬ 
one’s coat tails to pull them along, or 
got the idee you wuz a sky rocket so 
you could yank them up if you made 
a hit and then they could shout T told 
you how to do it.’ More walkin’ gas 
wells. 

* * * 

“Of course you’ve met the fellers 
who always told you what they wuz 
goin’ to do tomorrow; just wait ’til 
tomorrow and they’d show the people 
somethin’ and they wuzn’t any dum¬ 
mies. They git tellin’ this story so 
often that they repeat it every day 
and its always tomorrow when they 
are goin’ to do the trick, just like the 
man who had hopes of his big gas 
well, but it petered out. Now if these 
fellers can give me the date when to¬ 
morrow is, he would be doin’ the world 
a favor, but I never seen a calendar 
that had tomorrow on it and I looked 
at hundreds of them. That feller is 
safe in makin’ that crack about to¬ 
morrow but I’m beginnin’ to think to¬ 
morrow is the 32nd day of the month 
and that is the reason we lose the 
valuable services of their brains. 

* * * 

“Then there is another kind of 
walkin’ gas wells that’s continually 
vowin’ this country is goin’ to be horn- 
swaggled, goin’ to the dogs, it never 
wuz run right and everyone who had 
a government job ought to be in jail, 
fer they’re nothin’ but grafters and 
if they had the chance they’d show 
how it should be done. Of course 
you’ve met that kind, fer they’re as 
common as a herd of stray tom cats 
that haunt our back yards at night, 
makin’ horrible yowls, snarlin’ at 
everything until you hurl your boots 
at them. We could make these fellers 
stop if we hurled our boots at them 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


with our feet in them of course, which 
is a good way to stop some kinds of 
gas wells. 

* * * 

“One day a feller came to me and 
begun to tell me how smart I wuz be¬ 
cause I owned my farm and had lots of 
stock and some money in the bank. 
He talked so hard and fast I begun to 
think I wuz a wonder and I knowed it 
all. Then he told me how I could 
make a lot more money if I would 
buy some stocks off him and I would 
double my money every month. But 
Mrs. Farmer John came along and 
told him we had enough money now 
to keep us from starvin’ and she did¬ 
n’t want any more around the house, 
fer it might attract the robbers. Why 
that feller acted like an old cat I had 
when I slung the dog a piece of liver. 
That would nose around and watchin’ 
its chance; one swipe from the cat’s 
paw, a howl from the dog and the cat 
had it, and that’s what would hap¬ 
pened to me. That feller wuz the cat, 
I wuz the dog and my money wuz the 
liver; where would I come in at when 
I got scratched. Watch this kind of 
gas wells. 

* * * 

“Now the only kind of gas wells we 
want to tackle is the kind we got to 
pump, that kind of folks don’t shoot 
out their gas every minute, fer if wa 
pump them we are ready to take care 
of the gas we git from them and take 
care of it and handle it right, just 
like my wife when she tackled the 
foxey gas well who wuz after my liver 
and I wuz the dog. When we pump 
these gas wells they will do us good 
and they ain’t after anything but we 
are when we do the pumpin’ and the 
gas they give us is good sound ad¬ 
vice. So when you want good solid 
advice, you got to pump fer it. 

* * * 

“The biggest collection of gas wells 
is generally found right in our own 
neighborhood. We see them pikin’ 
over the back fence or sittin’ on the 
front porches or door steps, watchin’ 
what other folks are doin’ and as they 
don’t know everything or hear every¬ 
thing, they put some more to it and 


shoot it all around. Then someone 
touches a match to it by repeatin’ and 
then comes the explosion and we all 
git burnt, if we git mixed up in it, as 
we are in everybody else's hair fer 
fair. So it pays to dodge this kind of 
gas that is liable to shoot us sky high, 
fer its hard to squelch. 

* * * 

“Now I wuz told that all gas wells 
don’t make a roar or even hiss when 
the gas is cornin’ out. You can’t smell 
it but you can feel it, just like a blast 
of cold air, and there are some folks 
that have a soothin’ way about them 
just like takin’ a dose of ether, when 
we want to git our teeth pulled, but 
it will blow us up just the same. 
They come a purrin’ around, soft like 
and tell you you never made a mis¬ 
take, when you know just as sure as 
you were born that we don’t know a 
dern thing and they’re tellin’ us down¬ 
right lies. But good gracious how we 
like to swaller it and we begin to swell 
up just like a balloon, and we think 
old King Solomon ain’t got anything 
on us; when all at once we got a 
puncture and the gas escapes and we 
git flatter than a postage stamp. Say 
if we want to keep our original shape 
don’t swaller that kind of gas. 

* * * 

“Now you see some folks who like to 
appear big, just like the frog, shoot 
off the gas; others because they are 
after something you have and they 
want. Others shoot off the gas to de¬ 
stroy; it may be your reputation, your 
home or your friends, and we got to 
watch out so we won’t be gassed and 
we got to put on our gas mask, fer the 
good Lord gave us one, but there is 
mighty few folks usin’ it and that is 
the Bible. If we study it we will 
realize how much the success of this 
world depends on us not gittin’ gassed 
and to dodge the gassers. If Kaiser 
Bill had studied it he wouldn’t gassed 
the whole world and we’re sufferin' 
from it right now. 

* * * 

“The proper place fer gas is in pipes 
so we can use it right. It ain’t made 
to swaller and our bodies ain’t got any 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


75'. 


place fer it. We ain’t built that way. 
We got our limitations and gas ain’t 
on our bill of fare, so if we take it 
in we got to pay the bill sure. So 
when the gas comes your way git out 
your gas mask quick, you’ll need it. 
Fer if you don’t, every time you pass 
a butcher shop and see calves’ brains 
you will blush, because they showed 
more than you ever did. 

* * * 

"^‘There ain’t no use of me talkin’ 
any more about gas but if you pay at¬ 
tention to what the good Lord tells 
you in His great book, there ain’t no 
danger of you gittin’ gassed, fer that is 
the only book you can git the right 
pointers how to git away from it. All 
you have to do is to pump the good 


gas right out of that book and you. 
won’t git fooled and swaller the wrong 
kind. 

* * * 

“Every person you meet are sur¬ 
rounded by different conditions, most 
of them don’t understand you nor you 
them. So the advice you git amounts 
to about as much as a snowball on a 
red hot stove. If the folks who are 
tellin’ you how to do things will just 
tell you what they really done, then 
if it is right their advice is good. But 
be sure and go to the ones who have 
done things by workin’, not with their 
faces and not to some dub who is try- 
in’ to git a lift in life at your ex¬ 
pense or by foolin’ with the hind end; 
of a mule.” 


7G 


FARMER JOHN'S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


HUMAN GENERATORS 


We Shoot Our Influence All Over the World, We Don’t 
Know Where It Goes, But It Lives on Forever 


“Now the strangest thing to me is,” 
remarked Farmer John, one day, “that 
our folks think that what they do in 
this world ain’t nobody’s business but 
their own. They put me in mind of 
Pud Dingey. You see Pud had a lot 
of chickens and of course he let them 
run loose whenever he wanted to, but 
those doggone fowl always come into 
my garden and scratched up the seed, 
peckin’ at the growing plants and rais¬ 
ed the duece generally. When I talk¬ 
ed to him about it he told me it wuz 
none of my business when he let his 
birds out of the coop. 

* * * 

“I admit that his argument wuz 
right. Of course it wuzn’t none of my 
business but it wuz my business to 
register a kick when they come over 
in my diggin’s and lunched on my gar¬ 
den sass, fer I wuzn’t plowin’ and hoe- 
in’ just to keep Pud’s egg layers from 
starvin’ to death, I didn’t git any of 
the eggs and I couldn’t git any garden 
truck either. So I wuz loosin’ out and 
comparin’ Pud with the popular idee, 
that what we do ain’t anybody’s busi¬ 
ness except our own, fits in just like 
Pud’s argument. 

* * * 

“Now these folks don’t realize that 
every one of them has chickens, that 
they are lettin’ loose every day, and 
those chickens are nothin’ more than 
the influence they have on other folks, 
a sort of a magnetism, that draws tnd 
attracts, fer to my mind every one of 
us is a sort of an electric machine, 
generatin’ our own power and we don’t 
know where all that power is giftin’ 
scattered. We can take our wireless 
outfit, sendin’ our messages out into 
the air and there ain’t one person 
alive who can tell who’s listenin’ in, 
fer it is broadcasted everywhere. That 


is just like our influence, our magne¬ 
tism. Our lives is the message, we 
are broadcastin’ it by our minglin’ 
with other folks. 

* * * 

“Now we can’t see our influence, 
nor even hear it, but we Know it’s 
flyin’ around, fer I think we would 
take all kinds of spasms and fits if 
we only knew how our lives and in¬ 
fluences affect other folks. We are 
nothin’ but telephones, givin’ out bless- 
in’s or curses to be heard and talked 
about by others we don’t take notice 
what we’re doin’, just like Foxey Mott. 
He had a party line telephone and he 
called up a chum of his and told how 
he wuz goin’ to pull off a funny stunt 
that would bring him in some money, 
by workin’ a party who thought he wuz 
a friend and he wuz goin’ to touch me 
fer a loan to do it and then he would 
let me whistle fer my money. By 
some mistake I listened in, as I wuz 
on the same wire. So as I never wuz 
good at whistlin’ and concludin’ I wuz 
too old to learn, Foxey slipped a cog 
when he told me how badly he wanted 
the money so he could make more. 
You see I saved the world some more 
bad influences, because I couldn’t 
whistle. 

* * * 

“Now these influences we give out 
every day never die. George Wash¬ 
ington has been lyin’ in the tomb fer 

nearly 125 years, yet his influence still 
lives. Abraham Lincoln still preaches 
the sermon he gave at Gettyburg in 
1863; its influence is still goin’ on. 
Napoleon Bonaparte’s influence is still 
alive; fer didn’t Kaiser Bill try to imi¬ 
tate it and loose out? We can go 
through all the cemetaries we want to 
and when we read the grave stones 





FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


77 


of the people we knowed, who are lay- 
in’ there, we think of their influence 
and talk about it. We can read his¬ 
tory and about the lives of our cele¬ 
brated men and what they done, and 
the influence they created still lives. 
Benedict Arnold and Judas still exert 
the evil influence they flooded the 
earth with. 

* * * 

“Don’t think that when the dirt is 
put over our bodies that is the end of 
it all; because it aint. We have left 
somethin’ behind in the memory of 
others that will be passed from gener¬ 
ation to generation; it will never die. 
Influence is like seeds, they grow and 
then produce other seeds and the 
plant will never be lost. That influ¬ 
ence we leave behind grows and keeps 
on growin’ whether it be fer good or 
bad and some time, in this world or 
in the future we got to meet the gath¬ 
ered harvest, that may not be a pleas¬ 
ant one to see. 

* * * 

“The influence we start to grow 
when we begin life, depends on asso¬ 
ciations, and if bad, not carin’ what 
we do, gits into our family life and 
social circles. It begins small, just 
like a buddin’ plant, and as our family 
gits bigger then we begin to scatter it, 
just like sowin’ seeds, they all will 
grow, fer the members of the family 
will watch you, an’ some of them imi¬ 
tate you, just like the Kaiser and Na¬ 
poleon, gittin’ the idee they can im¬ 
prove on your methods. So whose 
fault is that? You planted the seeds, 
you didn’t care where they fell, you 
wuzn’t careful what kind they wuz and 
you wake up when it is too late. 

* * * 

“The influence of a good mother is 
never forgotten, although she may 
have been gone fer years. No one 
with any kind of a heart, or who ain’t 
insane, can fergit it. As the years 
roll by those prayers and tears shed 
fer us, the talks she gave us, the 
untirin’ love she lavished on us, still 
lives. I read a story once about a 
young feller that stood on the gal¬ 
lows and he said, ‘If I had only fol¬ 


lowed the teachin’s of my mother, l 
wouldn’t be here. If you could gather 
up my influence and bury it with me, 
so it can do no more harm, I would 
die happy, but I wouldn’t listen and. 
it’s too late. 

* * * 

“Now I ain’t sayin’ that every son. 
who don’t listen to his mother is goin’ 
to git hung, anymore than any per¬ 
son who fools with a mule is goin’ 
to git kicked in the ribs or some 
other place at right angles with them. 
But that feller, young in years, might 
as well asked to tie a knot in a gale 
of wind, chain the lightenin’ or scoop 
back the waves of the ocean with a 
teaspoon. He asked the impossible,, 
fer he paid no attention to the good; 
he thought he could dodge influences, 
that is scattered all through the world,, 
but he found out, when it wuz too late,, 
what evil influences will do. 

* * * 

“I tell this story just to show that 
this boy did not create the influence- 
that sent him to his death. No doubt 
his companions thought he wuz a fool 
because he wuz caught and they was. 
slicker and wouldn’t be. But they 
ain’t smooth at all, fer the time will 
come when they too will be faced with 
the result of their influences, fer it 
means a misspent life, a life of fear„ 
suspicion and hate, instead of success 
and happiness, fer which we all were 
created. 

* * * 

“Folks don’t care, because they got 
the selfish heart; they are thinkin’ 
that the only thing they got to look 
out fer is themselves and other folks 
ain’t worth considerin’. But when we- 
consider that if we wuz each of us 
singly put in a place by ourselves,, 
there wouldn’t be enough crazy houses 
to take care of us all. We can’t live 
with out the other feller; he is just 
as necessary to us as our food. Gosh,, 
how dependent we are on other folks 
to live, and yet some folks swear that 
they are independent and don’t need 
any other people so they can live. 
Now when any body says that, I’m be- 
ginnin’ to think that they got the idee- 
they are greater than God Almighty, 




78 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


■who plainly tells us that man can’t 
live alone; but they know more than 
•God. 

* * * 

“This magnetism, this influence is 
• a terrible thing, when we size it all 
up, because we are all follerin’ some 
one else. Somebody invented all these 
•crooked idees, and in this day there 
ain’t no original ones. We only add to 
what another person has done and 
then we suffer the consequences. We 
ain’t a bit smart; we ain’t got as many 
brains as a rabbit, because they ain’t 
storin’ up grub fer their great grand¬ 
children, all they do is try and provide 
food fer their winter of life. But we, 
instead of follerin’ their example, 
want to own the whole earth, gittin’ 
a strangle hold on it, so we can lord 
it over somebody else, and not fer the 
good we can do to the rest of human¬ 
ity. 

* * * 

“Now it looks to me as if the Good 
Lord sent us trials and difficulties to 
make us better and stronger. He is 
watchin’ us how we do things, and if 
we believe in what he tells us, He 
wants to increase our faith, but some 
folks think that they are gittin’ the 
wooly end of the stick if things slip 
up, and start some engineerin’ of their 
own. Not havin’ the far seein’ eye of 
•God Almighty, ignorin’ the influence 
that he gives us, we are worse off 
than ever, because we begin to do 
mean things, that won’t bear the light 
of day, that is scattered everywhere 
and cannot be recalled. 

# * * 

“There is trouble and sorrow fer 
those who’ suffer from evil influences, 
but worse fer those who give it out. 
Every idle word, every action, every¬ 
thing we do, is establishin’ our influ¬ 
ence. The young man or woman who 
tries to do right and does the best 
they can, has a good influence. They 
don’t have to shout it from the house 
tops, or beller it through a big tin 
horn, to call attention to it. It don’t 
take folks long to size them up, fer 
folks will talk and gabble and quack 
like a lot of geese. Of course they will 
git roasted and slandered, but what do 


they need care, their influence is good, 
and when the end comes, it will last 
forever. 

* * * 

“We are livin’ in a peculiar age. 
Everybody appears to be stumped and 
don’t know what to do, when to my 
mind there is no need of worryin’, 
when all we got to do is to study the 
grand old Bible and use it fer our 
guide. But it appears to me we have 
forgotten it and we’re floppin around 
like a chicken with its head cut off, 
all because we want to git the best 
of the other feller. So the world is 
watchin’ each other, armed with shot 
guns and cannons, ready to let loose, 
if we can’t pull their leg and make 
them limp. 

* * * 

“God Almighty don’t have things 
make a noise that is growin’ on our 
farms. As we grow big we don’t hear 
our joints a crackin’ when they are 
gittin’ bigger. When the sun shines 
on us, we don’t hear no big roar from 
it, but they all come just the same. 
Our influence as it grows day by day, 
each little space of time addin’ more 
and more to it, is gittin’ in its work 
silently, but it is still gittin’ larger 
and larger, until we don’t know how 
far it extends, reachin’ clear around 
this earth, because folks are talkin’ 
about us that remember, who are liv¬ 
in’ thousands of miles away from us, 
and what we done. We can’t hold 
it in, it gits beyond us. Just the 
same as a horse I owned once that 
threw me to the road side and then 
went like a streak of lightnin’ up the 
road. It took me a long time before 
I found out where it wuz. 

* * * 

“We ought to be proud that we 
got influence. It is the only thing we 
created that we leave behind us after 
we have passed away from this earth. 
We ought to be proud that we can 
do our little bit in mouldin’ this world, 
to make it better. We don’t have to 
make big speeches, to the applause of 
thousands. We don’t have to be mil¬ 
lionaires, nor statesmen, nor big gen¬ 
erals. We don’t have to git our pic¬ 
ture in the great papers of the day, 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


79 


but we can watch our influence and 
make it a guidin’ star fer those we 
leave behind us. Thunder and stormy 
are needed as well as the sunlight and 
the dew. We have our trials and 
tribulations as well as our happy days 
and our influence must stand strong 
and upright through all conditions, so 
that it will exert fer good. 

* * * 

“Let us be truthful and honest; 
lielp each other, git our hearts tuned 
up to the will of God Almighty and 




His teachin’s, so we can git wisdom 
and help. Study the Bible, let us be 
more mindful of the silent influences, 
which are ours if we want them. Let 
us understand that we ain’t created 
fer ourselves alone and the ‘don’t care 
idee’ is the wrong road. We must 
care, it is demanded of us, fer when 
we realize that other folks have just 
as many rights as we have, that must 
not be led astray by our selfish actions 
and words, we will reap the harvest 
and sow seeds of good, that will last 
through all the cornin’ time." 


/ 






80 


PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


GOOD MORNIN’ GOD 


Every Day of Our Earthly Life is a Reminder of the Great 
Night of Life for After the Night Comes the Homin’ 


It was a bright, balmy Sunday after¬ 
noon when I motored to the home of 
Farmer John to spend the rest of the 
day with him. I found him on his 
porch, surrounded with his family, all 
chatting in a lively manner. I could 
not help being impressed with the 
surroundings; how calm and peaceful 
everything looked, the home like 
house, encircled with stately trees 
gently waving in the soft summer 
breezes; the beautiful and gorgeous 
flowers, wafting their delicious per¬ 
fumes in the atmosphere; the grassy 
lawns, like a velvet carpet to one’s 
feet, made a most perfect picture. 

A short distance away I could see 
the waving cornfields, with their tas¬ 
sels proclaiming that the harvest was 
almost ready; fields stacked with new 
mown hay. Acres of all kinds of farm 
produce; in the orchards the trees 
seemed ready to break down, ladened 
heavily with fruit, and away in the 
distance I could see the verdure hills, 
adding their picturesque beauty to the 
scene. 

The singing of the birds, lowing of 
the cattle, accompanied by the soft 
tinkling of the bells, attached to their 
necks. In the barn yard were hun¬ 
dreds of chickens, industriously 
scratching for food and the murmur¬ 
ing of the water, that gently flowed 
over the rocks and stones in the near¬ 
by brook gave forth music that charm¬ 
ed and soothed. All nature seemingly 
proclaiming that this was the day of 
rest for both man and beast. 

* * * 

Farmer John greeted me cordially, 
shaking me by the hand, when I reach¬ 
ed the porch and joined the happy 
group, providing me with a comfor¬ 


table chair, relieving me of my hat 
and refreshed me with a glass of cool¬ 
ing milk. I could not help remarking 
about the unusual panorama of the 
scene presented to my delighted eyes. 
I could see nothing that would offend 
the most fastidious, who loved true 
nature; the restfulness of that scene 
would never be effaced from my mind. 

A large St. Bernard dog rose lazily 
to its feet and wagging its tail, in a 
friendly manner, laid down at my feet, 
while two young kittens were engaged 
in play, interesting to watch, at the 
further end of the porch. How peace¬ 
ful, grand and beautiful it all seemed, 
as I mentally compared it to what 
some people call the advantages of 
city life. Nothing pretentious, but it 
seemed that everything contributed to 
the enjoyment and affection of the 
home life of the occupants. 

* * * 

“Isn’t this a gorgeous day?” I asked 
the Farmer, after I had greedily gazed 
upon this wonderful picture spread out 
before me_ “Look at the bright sun¬ 
light, the birds, flowers, the gently 
swaying trees and the cooling breezes; 
your growing crops and those lovely 
far distant hills. It seems to me 
that dll nature has proclaimed that 
this is God’s day of rest.” 

“I agree with you,” replied Farmer 
John, “fer if folks would only stop to- 
think that we require one day in 
seven to rest up our bodies and minds, 
accordin’ to the laws set down by our 
Good Lord; if they would git away 
from the crowded cities, where they 
see nothin’ but walls; git away from 
the everlastin’ racket of the cars, the 
shoutin’ and rushin’ of the folks, 
there wouldn’t be so many tired' 
bodies, nor worn out minds, to start 
the week with. How many folks see 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


81 


the beautiful sun come up in the 
morn,’ as it slowly peeps over them 
hills? How many of them can en¬ 
joy the air that has been made fresh 
fer us durin’ the night? Why if folks 
would only stop to think what morn- 
in’s mean to them there wouldn’t be 
a grouchy man in the world. 

* * * 

“I can’t fergit what the Bibit, says 
about that very thing, yet no one pays 
any attention to i', fer it says, ‘After 
the night comes the mornin’ ’ and it 
teaches a big lesson to us, if we would 
only think a little; but the average 
person thinks about the mornin’ that 
it’s time to git up and fly to work, not 
rememberin’ that every day should 
bring to our minds that most of us 
nas another night cornin’ to us. Now 
to my mind there is very few folks 
that thank God they got through 
the night, because they ain’t realized 
yet that night is fer rest, and not to 
gad around until the roosters begin to 
crow. 

* * * 

“Now if we don’t git rested durin’ 
the night we can’t work right; our 
minds and brains is all muddled. As 
the day advances we git more tired 
and we wish it wuz night agin so we 
can go to bed and git rested. But 
look at the folks that don’t do it. 
When the evenin' comes, out they go 
agin and do the very same thing over 
and more wishin’ fer night. In 
fact there is a set of folks that is al¬ 
ways wishin’ fer night and don’t want 
any daytime at all, worse than bats 
which hide in daytime but gits out at 
night. It’s a wonder to me the good 
Bord don’t give them bat eyes and bat 
bodies and let them feed on bat food. 

* * * 

“Agin, I’m thinkin’ if we all knew 
what we had to go through, in our 
everyday life, we’d all be goin’ foolish 
thinkin’ about it. I think the Lord is 
good to us by not lettin’ us know, but 
we got the bump of curiosity just like 
old mother Eve, so we try to pry into 
the future and we git skinned by for¬ 
tune tellers, who know about it just 
as much as I do. Ain’t we a fine 
bunch tryin’ to beat the Lord, just 


like my kid here. I told him eatin’ 
green apples would make him sick, 
and just because they looked nice he 
chewed up a couple. Yes he got over 
it all right, but I think he’ll pass up 
green apples fer the rest of his life 
and he’ll believe me the next time I 
tell him what’s what. 

* * * 

“Our life is composed of days. Just 
one day after another, and we don't 
know which is goin’ to be our last 
one, except we’re goin’ to git hung or 
put in the electric chair, and we can’t 
tell that because we might slip off 
before the time. Every day has its 
night and all these days and nights we 
spend livin’ on this earth is our day 
of life. If we got a day of life our life 
has got its night, and the Bible tells 
that after the night comes the morn¬ 
in’. That’s what we’re all lookin’ fer 
that wonderful mornin’ of eternal life 
fer us all, when all nights shall end. 

* * * 

“Now when most folks git up in the 
mornin’ most of them is in a rush, 
they slept too long, and they fergit to 
thank the Good Lord fer keepin’ them 
while they wuz unconscious and didn’t 
know nothin’. But when they see 
their boss a cornin’ they can’t shout, 
‘Good Mornin’ ’ loud enough, so he’ll 
know they are on the job. That boss 
ain’t got nothin’ to do with his bein’ 
on deck ready to work and moreover 
he ain’t interested. All he wants is 
the work and if we don’t do it he’ll 
git some one else who will. 

* * * 

“And so it’s hustle and work with 
all kinds of troubles and sickness dur¬ 
in’ our mortal life. And when it comes 
to the end, we got the night on us and 
we take the long sleep, that ain’t got 
any alarm clock to wake us. We don’t 
have to rush off to some job and wait 
fer the whistle to blow; but when we 
do awake, in a day brighter and more 
glorious than this, with heavenly 
music, more entrancin’ than ever mor¬ 
tal ear heard; when we meet our fath¬ 
ers and mothers, brothers and sisters 
and all our friends, I often wonder 
what will be the first words we’ll 
say. 




82 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


“I think that the first thing I’d want 
to say would be ‘Good Morain’ God’ 
and then thank Him fer his goodness 
to me, fer He woke me up, took me 
out of the grave. He told me I’d be 
only sleepin’ and I’d wake up again, 
even if my poor old worn-out body wuz 
put in the grave and covered up, and 
I believed it and here I wuz. Now 
ain’t that the first thing I should say, 
just like the feller shoutin’ to his boss, 
‘Good Mornin’.’ Then after the good 
Lord noticed me and told me to enjoy 
myself, then I could greet my family 
and friends and enjoy the life the 
Bible says I’m goin’ to git, if I act 
right. 

* * * 

“Now we lay down to sleep every 
night, except when we don’t work 
night work. Then we got to do our 
sleepin’ in the day time, but it’s our 
night anyhow, and seven nights a 
week, 365 nights in a year, we go to 
bed and don’t remember that our night 
is a reminder of the great night that 
we got to put in. Three hundred and 
sixty-five times we wake up every 
year and we don’t think what that 
night represents. But very few of 
us start in practicin’ and git ready to 
say, ‘Good Mornin’ God,’ but most of 
us git up grouchy and mad at our¬ 
selves, because we feel sleepy and 
tired and have to hustle fer our liv¬ 
in’. 

* * * 

“You see the beautiful scene around 
you, how fine everything looks. It did¬ 
n’t grow that way. I had to work hard, 
sow and plough and reap, sweat and 
work, and now the evenin’ of my life 
has come; just like the evenin’ of this 
fine day. As I see the shadows failin’ 
on me, tellin’ me that my long night 
is fast approachin’, I ain’t afraid. I’m 
glad of it, fer I know that when I fall 
asleep I’m goin’ to wake up agin and 
the first thing I want to say is ‘Good 
Mornin’ God,’ because he made me out 
of nothin’, gave me a brain, then told 
me how to live and how I could be 
happy, if I only acted right. And 
wouldn’t I be ungrateful if I didn’t 
speak to Him first? 


“These fellers that think they can 
do as they please; do all kinds of 
mean tricks, will have a harder time 
than me and I’m sorry fer them. They 
got to take that long sleep too, and 
they got to wake up. When they do. 
I’ll bet they would give a great deal 
to be able to shout ‘Good Mornin’ 
God.’ But I think a bunch of them will 
be tongue-tied and fergit their own 
names. The more I think about it, 
the more it will pay us to git in the 
right class and start practicin’ right 
away, fer they don’t know how soon 
someone will have to dig their last 
bed fer them. So it pays to keep in 
trainin’ and we won’t fergit to say 
‘Good Mornin’ God,’ when the time 
comes. 

* * * 

“I’m just selfish enough that I don’t 
want to stutter when I come up from 
the grave and greet my Lord and 
King. I want to be able to look Him 
straight in the eye and say, just as 
if He expected me, ‘Good Mornin’ 
God/ and I was an invited guest. So 
when I hand in my card I got to be 
right. I don’t want to be looked upon 
as if I sneaked in and had to git point¬ 
ers from someone else because I’d 
have to acknowledge that I hadn’t 
read the Bible and didn’t know what 
to expect. I want to be right and the 
only way to be right is do right. Then 
we can enjoy the goin’ into, as well as 
the cornin’ out, of our last sleep. 

* * * 

“See,’’ continued the Farmer, “it’s 
gittin’ darker and darker. Soon we’ll 
have to light the lamps. Listen to 
the crickets a chirpin’, see the glow 
of the fireflies, see how gradually the 
night comes upon us, and it’s the same 
thing with life. We don’t know when 
the night of our life comes on us. It 
may come with the swiftness of dark¬ 
ness of the tropics; or it may come 
gradually, just like the twilight of the 
Arctic regions. We don’t know when 
our day will end, for we don’t notice 
the approachin’ of that great night of 
life when our day will end and we got 
to take that sleep which we so much 
dread. The young folks say we are 
old, but we don’t feel that way. We 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


83 


leel just as young as we did fifty years 
ago, except our joints are a little 
■stiff er. But I think we can enjoy life 
■better, because we spent it right, har- 
ing no regrets; nothin’ to be sorry fer, 
because we done the best we could! 
We tried to show folks how to live 
right, by doin’ it ourselves. 

* * * 

* 1 know I’m called an old fossil and 
I don’t know anything in the eyes of 
the young folks; but when they have 
reached my years, and the frosts of 
age gathers on their heads, the young¬ 
er generation will say the same thing 
about them. But we can’t stop, fer 
*we ain’t takin’ the long sleep yet. We 
must show these young folks that 
when their end comes and when they 
wake up, they can join the happy 
throng and say with their hearts full 
•of love, ‘Good Mornin’ God.’ ” 

* * * 

And as the twilight softly faded and 
the night shadows deepened, the sil¬ 
very stars began to peep out over 
3iead, we heard the sweet strains of 


music from the organ within the 
house and I became entranced when 
I heard the words of that grand old 
hymn: 

O’er the hills the sun is setting, 

And the eve is drawing on; 

Slowly drops the gentle twilight, 
For another day is gone. 

Gone for aye its race is over. 

And the lamps hang in the dome; 

But ’tis sweet to know at even’ 

We are one day nearer home. 

* * * 

“How true it is,” said Farmer John 
softly, as the words died away. “One 
day nearer home; every day w e 0 pend 
on this earth, from the very first one. 
It makes no difference whether we are 
rich or poor, king or peasant, wise or 
ignorant, time in its resistless flight 
brings us all closer and closer to that 
great awakinin’ surrounded by inde¬ 
scribable glory of that life that we are 
promised shall have no more sorrow, 
pain nor death and with hearts full 
of joy and happiness, we can all say, 
‘Good Mornin’ God, our King and our 
Redeemer.’ ” 







FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


84 

« (: 




WHO IS YOUR BOSS? 

Don’t Brag About Havin’ No Boss, They Are After Us 
From the Cradle to the Grave 


“Say, ain’t it strange how many folks 
in this world think they’re so indepen¬ 
dent that they ain’t got any boss and 
nobody can boss them,” said Farmer 
John to me one day at the office, “then 
agin, look at the folks who envy their 
boss and say he does things, because 
he ain’t got any one to boss him, it’s 
somethin’ I never could understand.” 

* * * 

“Well,” I answered, “I think it is 
tho ambition of many people to get 
above being bossed, probably getting 
tired of taking orders.” 

“Now I see you are just like the 
folks I speak about,” replied the Farm¬ 
er, “you got the idee that when you 
get to be a foreman you ain’t got any 
boss or you got so big that you don't 
have to take any orders from anyone. 
Now you are sittin’ at that desk, givin’ 
orders, and I begin to think you got a 
notion you ain’t got any boss. Is that 
right?” 

* * * 

“I can’t see where I have anyone to 
bow to,” I replied. “If you think I 
have, suppose you tell me about it.” 

“I’m glad you invited me to speak 
about it, fer 1 think you are wrong,” 
remarked the Farmer, “ fer there is 
nothin’ like puttin’ folks straight on 
this matter and I’m goin’ to do it the 
best I can. I will start at the begin- 
in’ and get you right too. Now I’ll 
bet when you wuz a kid you often got 
angry when you had to do things you 
didn’t want to. If you didn’t you wuz- 
n’t natural, fer I never yet saw a 
youngster that didn’t kick at somethin’ 
it had to do. 

* * * 

“Why, my old dad, had to git out his 
strap often and make me mind, al¬ 


though my mother bragged how good 
I wuz and my pap vowed I wuz some¬ 
thin’ contemtible, when it come to 
choppin’ wood and do other jobs that 
wuz laid out fer me. But I had to do 
it and one day I told him that when I 
got big I’d show him, no one could 
boss me. He took advantage of my 
size and fer that remark I got a ratt¬ 
lin’ good whalin’, just to show me that 
I had to mind and he wuz the boss at 
that stage of the game anyhow. 

* * * 

“And I guess I wuz like the rest of 
the young folks, because they told me 
what they did to dodge things they 
wuz told to do. Why us kids had a 
regular society, where we compared 
notes, and how we could git out of 
doin’ things, fer we all thought that 
we wuz imposed on and wuzn’t treat¬ 
ed right by the big folks fer they 
wanted us to work we wanted to play. 
When we had to go to school, we 
thought we wuz almost killed, and if 
we didn’t go we wished we wuz killed, 
takin’ what came after. So you see 
that when we started out, even as a 
kid, you and me and all the rest of us 
had all kinds of bosses. 

* * * 

“When we got a little older and 
s r a"ted to work fer a livin’, good gra¬ 
cious wuzn’t we happy. We thought we 
got rid of our bosses, but we got fool¬ 
ed. We only changed them, fer the 
foreman wuz after us hard and made 
us wo p k, just like I did my old mule 
when he got balky. I knew he could do 
it. so I made him. Then we got sore at 
the foreman and vowed that we would 
work hard, and we would dodge our 
bosses when we got to be foreman. 

“So in the course of time we studied 
and worked. After while we got to be 
foreman and we wuz happy agin, be- 





FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


85 


cause we thought we got rid of our 
foreman boss. We swelled up like a 
poutin’ pidgeon, but that didn’t last 
very long, because we soon found out 
that the Superintendent of the place 
begun to give us orders. We could 
hardly breathe, except we wuz faced 
with them on every side. Then we 
knowed that we hadn’t dodged our 
boss yet, he wuz still after us, fer we 
had only changed them agin, just like 
my hired man, Hiram when he chang¬ 
ed his pants, he had to wear them; 
so he had to put on another pair, fer 
he would a got into all kinds of trou¬ 
ble if he hadn’t. 

* * * 

“Then we got mad agin, because we 
still had a boss. Now we thought if 
we got to be Superintendent we would 
be the real thing. We could boss the 
foremen and the men, and that wuz 
all there wuz 10 it. So we worked 
hard and faithfully and when the 
chance came we wuz appointed Super¬ 
intendent. Up agin we swelled, be¬ 
cause all we thought we had to do wuz 
to sit in our office and give out orders. 
But we forgot that the organization 
had a President. The first thing we 
knowed along came a batch of orders 
that made us sit up and take notice. 
Agin we found out that a new boss 
wuz still at our heels. We hadn’t 
dodged him yet, and just like the 
other times, we had only changed 
bosses. 

* * * 

“But bein’ determined to git a job 
where we didn’t have a boss, and we 
wuz goin’ to be the one that didn’t 
have a boss, we laid fer the Presi¬ 
dent’s job, fer the idee had got hold 
of us, we wuzn’t goin’ to have anyone 
bossin’ us. If we got that job, ‘good 
bye boss,’ fer we had dodged him at 
last, but we had to knuckle down to 
the President, as he wuz our boss al¬ 
right. If we didn’t do as he wanted us 
to, we stood a big chance of bein’ 
bounced, fer no President wants any¬ 
body that won’t obey orders. So we 

gave in, but we still had a boss. 

* * * 

“In the course of time the chance 
came and we wuz selected the Presi¬ 


dent. Gosh all hemlock, wuzn’t we 
happy. We had got on top of the heap 
and at last we had dodged the boss. 
We wuz the king bee and all we had 
to do wuz look wise, just like an owl, 
and give out orders to everybody we 
wanted to. But one day along come 
some letters from a stockholders 
meetin’ and they wuz full of all kinds 
of orders, which I had to do, and if I 
did not a new President would soon 
take my place. I scratched my head. 
There it wuz, that great big ghost, it 
still haunted me, because I soon 
found out that the directors and stock¬ 
holders wuz lordin’ it over me. I still 
had a boss; I hadn’t dodged him yet, 
after all these years of tryin’. 

* * * 

“And it wuzn’t alone the directors 
and stockholders that wuz bossin’ me, 
but thousands of customers, a howlin’ 
and kickin’ if things didn’t go right. 
So I had to keep on hustlin’ and work- 
in’ to please a lot of other folks I 
never heard of before. I wuz gittin’ 
all kinds of letters from my bosses 
and they never stopped cornin’, every 
one of them a watchin’ me and de¬ 
mandin’ I do this and that, until I 
thought I never would git rid of my 
boss. 

* * * 

“But I had made lots of money, so 
I thought I would retire and take 
things easy and then at last I would 
be my own boss, I wouldn’t have di¬ 
rectors and stockholders and custo¬ 
mers lordin’ it over me and bossin’ 
me. So I quit; at last I had got to 
the point when I didn’t have a boss. 
But I missed it agin. I soon found 
out that my family and children and 
all my relatives got the idee that I 
still needed a boss. I couldn’t shake 
them, and they were worse than all 
the others, fer I couldn’t satisfy them. 
Then along come the tax collectors 
and everybody else that wanted any¬ 
thing. I made a mistake agin. Here 
I wuz, my hair white, I wuz gittin’ 
old and I hadn’t dodged that boss yet; 
it wuz still stickin’ to me. 

* * * 

“Now, here you are right at your 
desk and you know as well as I do, 





86 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


that you have a boss. Your custo¬ 
mers are after you, you got to please 
them and they are your bosses. You 
can’t dodge them, or its good-bye busi¬ 
ness. Somebody or something has 
got the grip on you, a regular throttle 
hold; just like the old man of the 
sea and Sinbad the sailor, you can’t 
shake him. Why even at farmin’, the 
weather and worms, birds and all 
those things are bossin’ me, because 
they can make my crops a failure, and 
I got to fight them. 

* * * 

“Take the preachers. We don’t 
think they got any boss, but they 
have. When we read the Bible, we 
soon learn that we all have a boss. 
We can’t escape, we can’t dodge, fer 
it tells us “That I am the Lord thy 
God, I created you and everything 
on the earth and the earth itself,’ and 
He gives us a set of laws that we got 
to obey or else pay the penalty. So 
we see that we got a boss from the 
cradle to the grave. Folks may prat¬ 
tle about their independence and 
shout they never had a boss; they 
can do as they please. So what are 
you goin’ to do about what the Bible 
says about it. 

* * * 

“When a feller is healthy and strong 
and don’t know what sickness is and 
he gits his tongue a waggin’ and 
wants to appear big, he generally 
starts off with sayin’ he can’t be boss¬ 
ed and he never wants one. But if 
the good Lord gives him an opportun¬ 
ity when he’s layin’ on his bed facin’ 
death, they git mighty anxious to 
want everybody to know they got a 
boss, and that boss is the good Lord. 
But that old boss, death, who breaks 
our hearts when he takes our loved 
ones away from us never to return, 
he’s the toughest one of them all and 
we can’t dodge him; he’s goin’ to 
show up some cime. 

* * * 

“In my experience I find that when 
a bad man is about to die he wants 
to be a preacher. There are more 
recruits fer the preachin’ business on 
death beds than would be necessary 


to reform every heathen that wuz: 
ever born. If they had started in at 
the right time, but not gittin’ the 
idee out of their heads that they have 
a boss until it’s too late there would 
not be millions of our heathen who 
are still worshippin’ idols. 

* * * 

“So the quicker we git the idee out 
of our minds that we ain’t got any 
boss the better it will be fer us and 
the world at large, fer we won’t dodge 
our responsibilities and we’ll be right 
on the job, a tryin’ to carry out his 
orders and try to do right. We can’t 
fergit that the Good Lord is our eter¬ 
nal boss, who we can’t dodge, and He 
will require an accountin’ fer the or¬ 
ders He has given us. We got them 
and we can’t dodge them, I don’t care 
how clever we are. It can’t be done, 
so we might as well knuckle down 
to them. 

* * * 

“This idee of wantin’ to be a preach¬ 
er, when its too late, won’t do us any 
good, fer folks won’t listen. It don’t 
look quite square to throw a rotten 
apple at the Good Lord and say, 
‘That’s me, ain’t I fine,’ when we could 
have offered ourselves before the 
worms have eatin’ the hearts out of us 
and then regret we hadn’t done it be¬ 
fore, all because we wuz too proud to 
acknowledge that we had a boss and 
we thought we wuz the whole thing 
and could do as we pleased. 

* * * 

“There wouldn’t be so many mar¬ 
ried folks that want divorces if they 
realized they had a boss. Too many 
married people want to be the boss 
over the other section of the house, 
and think they can do as they please, 
and this causes trouble. Now if mar¬ 
ried folks would just come together 
and talk matters over, and acknowl¬ 
edge they got a boss, one that will 
take care of them and steer them 
right, and that one is the good Lord, 
our courts and lawyers wouldn’t be so 
busy and thousands of children made 
unhappy by ignorin’ the boss idee. 

* * * 

“Now I’m glad I got a boss, fer He 
tops them all, and that is the Good 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


87 


Lord. He takes all the responsibili- lose out, if we just obey. He knows 

ties. We don’t have to worry about more than we do and we got to have 

whether they are right or wrong. faith in Him that everything is all 

That’s none of our business, fer if we right. It don’t make any difference 

give orders to our hired men, we what position in life we occupy, 

want them obeyed, and if we are whether a king or a pauper, we all 

wrong we got to pay the bill. So all have our boss, whom we must serve 

I can say is; Remember we all have a and obey, fer we can’t rule ourselves 

boss, a good, loyal and true one that at no time while we live on this 

takes charge of us and sees we don’t earth.” 







/ 



8S 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


GITTIN’ STARTED 


It s Up to Us, to Open Our Own Throttle Valve and Start, 
We Have Full Control of Our Own Energy Plant 


“I got a letter the other day,” said 
Farmer John, as we met in our weekly 
talk, “from a feller who told me about 
some work he wanted to do, and some 
how he could never git started. Every 
day he thought he would git at it 
and every day, when the time come, 
somethin’ turned up and he put it off. 
As time is rapidly flyin’ along, he 
ain’t done it, because he never start¬ 
ed. He put me in mind of Bug Jones, 
we called him “bug” because he had 
more idees than a dog had fleas. He 
would scratch and git them goin’, then 
he would stop. Then the bug ideas 
would begin work agin. 

* * * 

“Now “Bugs” wuzn’t a bad sort of a 
feller. When he would strike an idee, 
he would ponder over it and tell us 
about it. When he wuz goin’ to start 
it goin’ he wuz just like an engine on 
a track, already to start, but he could¬ 
n’t git up the steam, so the engine 
rusted away, the track got bad and his 
idees wuz worth about as much as a 
barrel without no heads in it; it 
couldn t be filled, for the stuff you pit 
in it would fly out both ends. 

* * * 

“Now fellers like this are smart 
enough. God Almighty gave them 
brains, lots of them, but they can’t 
git started, and that’s their failin’. 

I wuz readin’ about a peculiar sort of 
a worm, that gits into people, that 
lives in the South, called the hook 
worm. When that animal uses the 
bodies fer a habitation the folks won’t 
work, they git thin and sit around all 
day, doin’ nothin’. But those worms 
are havin’ a lovely time, borin’ into 
them, increasin’ in numbers, and the 


folks can’t git up action enough to 
Whistle fer their dogs. 

* * * 

“Now I often thought, if the folks 
that never can git started have got 
the hook worm disease, which is usin’ 
up all their vitality, or is it pure 
downright laziness. But bein’ no doc¬ 
tor I can’t tell, but somethin’ is usin’ 
up their ambition. So what can be 
done to make them git a move on and 
make them realize that if they don’t 
want to become the shell of a clam 
or a piece of discarded machinery, 
that is gittin’ ready fer the dump, 
they had better exert themselves and 
not pose like a fossilized fish, as ob¬ 
jects to look at and make folks think 
how clever they are, by just bein’ 
still. 

* * * 

“Now we got lots of owls in this 
country and when we see them and 
their big eyes we think, ‘How smart 
they look.’ But it’s all in looks, be¬ 
cause most of them git on their perch 
and blink, and I often thought if they 
would wear goggles or eye glasses 
they would even look intellectual. But 
we size them up by what they look 
like and not what they do. There is 
certainly a bunch of folks that are 
just like owls and “Bug” Jones. 

* * * 

“Now when our young folks are 
ready fer the battle of life most of 
them are just like young colts, frisky 
and lively, and rush all over the fields. 

If we yell at them they will rush away 
to another portion of the field. But 
in spite of their antics, they ain’t got 
started right, havin’ no object in view 
and the dancin’ around don’t amount 
to any more than the jumpin’ of a 








FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


89 


grasshopper, just because they ain’t 
got started. 

* * * 

•‘I had a pair of mules once that 
wuzn’t much on the start, but like 
lightnin’ on the stop. In fact most of 
the time they were stoppin’ instead 
of startin’. I’ll bet I wore out twenty 
whips poundin’ those mules before I 
convinced them that I wanted them 
to start and I wuz the judge of the 
stoppin’ and not them. Now of course 
I don’t think we ought to use a club 
on balky folks that won’t start, be¬ 
cause they might have the hook 
worms in them and they need a doc¬ 
tor instead of a rawhide, so their 
'Case ought to be investigated. 

* * * 

“I think that folks that can’t git 
started and won’t start to do what 
they know they ought to do, ought to 
be proded up a little and git some 
energy shoved into them, fer they are 
just like the engine with no steam. 
Apparently everything looks all right, 
but there must be some busted pipes 
around that lets the steam out and 
they can’t accumulate enough to make 
a toot on a penny whistle. So the 
first thing we ought to examine is 
our pipes that hold our energy and 
solder up the leaks. It’s mighty 
strange to me what little things will 
let our energy ooze out of us. It may 
be the bright sunshiny days or the 
cloudy ones, the weather or late 
hours, for some folks think they can 
do more work at night, but don’t do 
it, because it might keep someone else 
awake, so they don’t do it. 

* * * 

“Then agin there are other folks 
who will tell you how much work they 
are goin’ to do tomorrow, but that day 
never comes. I knew a feller once 
who every night entertained me about 
what he wuz goin’ to do tomorrow, but 
the next day wuz never tomorrow. So 
he never done anything, he done ev¬ 
erything in his mind, and as his mind 
wuzn’t hooked up with his energy 
pipes, he never done anything, just 
like my hired man Hiram. I told him 
I wanted him to fix the fences around 
The chicken coops inside of a couple 


of days and that is where I made a 
mistake. Those couple of days ain’t 
arrived yet, accordin’ to Hiram’s reck¬ 
onin’, and I had to do it myself. 

* * * 

“Now I know that when the spring 
comes I got to plow and sow my seeds. 
I ain’t got anybody to tell me what 
day I will do it, but if I want to sell 
my truck I got to raise it. So I got 
to git ready fer to do it and when I 
see the time is right, I must DO IT, 
and can’t put it off. So I git started 
and work. Then I reap my crops 
when the time comes. If us farmers 
didn’t do this you fellers who can’t 
git started wouldn’t be able to take 
life so easy and you would be holler¬ 
in’ why we didn’t git started, because 
somethin’ inside of you would have a 
disagreeable gnawin’ feelin’. 

* * * 

“There are too many folks in this 
world that never got started and 
moreover won’t even try to start. 
They make no effort to git along, just 
like “Hen” Perkins when he fell into 
the mill pond, where the water wuz 
only up to his neck. He yelled he wuz 
drownded, when all he had to do wuz 
walk ashore. So we had to drive him 
to the banks with bricks to make him 
stop his noise. Those bricks come so 
fast he couldn’t dodge them, so he had 
to run and he come out of that water 
just as quick as he tumbled in. We 
convinced him he didn’t have to 

drown, if he didn’t want to. Those 
bricks started him goin’ alright. 

* * * 

“Now this is an instance where 
bricks got “Hen” started, and it cured 
him, fer it showed him that if he 
wanted to git anywhere in this world 
he had to make the effort himself and 
not depend on other folks to push 

him along, fer the good Lord didn’t 
make us to be pushed. He gave us 
the necessaries to create our own en¬ 
ergies and we can do our own pushin’ 
and pullin’ if we only git started and 
git a move on, fer if we ain’t cripples, 
either in the head or body, we can 
start ourselves, by openin’ our own 





90 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


throttle valve and lettin’ our powers 
of energy get into our cylinders. 

* • • 

“Now all the great inventions which 
we are now enjoyin’ just come from 
gittin’ started. We wouldn’t had a 
blessed one of them if men hadn’t 
worked day and night to put them 
across. This world wouldn’t be so 
far ahead if we all sat still and nobody 
started to do anything. Have you no¬ 
ticed how few men git started to these 
great things that benefit mankind? 
They didn’t act like “Hen Perkins” in 
the mill pond, holler fer help, when 
all he had to do wuz walk out, nor 
even like “Bug Jones,” who got the 
idees but blew up like a sky rocket, 
but they stuck to it and accomplished 
things. 

* * * 

“But there is another class of folks 
that are always startin’ somethin’, and 
that is trouble. They are so awful 
smart that they want to run the earth, 
when they don’t show brains enough 
to roll a hoop around the corner. 
When they have a big row goin’ they 
sneak off to some quiet place and let 
other folks fight it out. We had a 
neighbor like this once, who would 
nose around, learn everything he 
could, then tell what he found out to 
everyone who would listen. When his 
story wuz repeated and got some more 
gossipers tellin’ what he said, with 
additions to it, he would dissappear 
until the scrap wuz over and then do 
the same thing over agin. 

* * * 

“If we don’t git started, whose 
fault is it Didn’t the good Lord give 
us this earth Didn’t he put 11 s on it? 
Didn’t He fix it fer us so we could 
live and enjoy it? And all we have 
to do is to git started and enjoy it. 
Things must be attended to. We got 
to work to make things right and the 
excuse that we can’t git started, and 
in fact won’t start, don’t look quite 
right. If I want things to git goin’ 
on my farm, I got to git started. I 
can’t sit still, fer if I don’t start and 
work no one else will. As the head 
of my establishment I got to set the 


example, I got to hustle, and when r 
do it and everybody else sees me 
workin’, then they will work to. We 
all git somewhere then. 

* • * 

“We git on a train to go visitin’, 
but if we don’t git to that train we 
can’t go anywhere. If the engineer of 
that train don’t pull into the station 
we can’t git on it either, so it takes 
co-operative action of all to git to 
where we want to go. To my mind 
this idee of gittin’ started is just like 
gittin’ on the train, we must make the 
effort to git to the station, with the 
full belief that the railroad company 
will have the train there and the en¬ 
gineer will bring it through. So the 
first effort must come from us, regard¬ 
less what the railroad company does. 
We got to attend to our end of it first. 

* * * 

“Gittin’ started means everything to 
us. We got to fight down the idee of 
puttin’ things off and thinkin’ another 
day will do, fer the more we put 
things off the more excuses we wilt 
make to ourselves and the more we 
make the easier for us to believe 
them, until we git so that any old 
excuse that would make a kid blush 
will convince us. Why we should put 
off our gittin’ started, fer it seems 
to me that if some of the reasons we 
give fer our not gittin’ started wuzr. 
given to us by someone else we would 
feel like puttin’ the one who gave' 
them in jail or the crazy house. 

* * * 

“If we want to git starred we got to 
“start,” and don’t make any excuses. 
They’re ain’t no use of apologizin’ to 
ourselves, and try to square matters 
by these lame excuses, that we know 
in our own mind is nothin’ but lies. 
We know right down in our own 
hearts they ain’t right, when the real 
truth of the matter is we are just too 
lazy to git goin’, and that gittin’ goin* 
is the greatest battle we have, fer 
when we do git started we will git so 
interested in the work we hate to 
stop. Then we regret the time we lost, 
if we had only buckled down and got 
goin’ sooner. 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


9 ll. 


“This lost time; why won’t folks 
pay attention to it. Our days on this 
earth is limited, we ain’t got any time 
to fool away. A day lost can never 
be made up they are gone forever. If 
us folks who are livin’ on this earth 
right now had a never endin’ life, 
then this lost time would not be so 
bad, but we ain’t got it and our time 
is limited. We don’t know when it 


will end, we don’t know when sick¬ 
ness will strike us and we can't do* 
anything. So when we got the brains, 
the energy, the idees and the know¬ 
ledge, then we should utilize them, so* 
the world will be better fer us havin' 
lived, as our work is the only thing 
we can leave behind us, to scatter 
good, that will help the others 
come after us.” 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 




WHAT ABOUT YOUR WAGES? 

Folks Pay Too Much Attention to First Pay Days and Not 

Enough to the Last One 


“I have been readin’ about these 
strikes fer more wages that is goin’ 
on all over the country,” said Farmer 
John one day to me, “and fer the life 
of me I can’t see why folks don’t 
think more about this wage question, 
fer it ain’t all money, it’s somethin’ 
more deeper than that. But it looks 

to me as if the wages idee is meas¬ 
ured by greenbacks and nothin’ else, 
fergittin’ that there is other wages 
cornin’ to us fer the work we done. Of 
course we all must work fer money, 
so we can support those dependin’ on 
us, but how about the other wages 
we fergot all about?” 

* * * 

“To what kind of wages do you re¬ 
fer to?” I asked, “I only know of one 
kind and that is money; so if you 
think there are other kinds of wages 
I would like to hear about them.” 

“The trouble is,” replied the Farm¬ 
er, “most folks think they only got 
one boss, and that’s the one they 
look to fer their money. But we got 
another boss that comes into this 

question whom we ignore, thinkin’ 
only about money and havin’ a good 
time and takin’ things easy. I ain’t 
discussin’ this kind of wages, we know 
all about that, but let’s look into the 
other kind of wages and see where we 
are landin’ and what are we goin’ to 
■git. 

* * * 

“We can travel all over this big 
country and we see all kinds of 

churches, with their steeples pointin’ 
up to the sky. Some of them have 
crosses on them and some ain’t, but 
fer the life of me I can’t see why 
every one of them shouldn’t have 

crosses on themf the more the better, 


fer then when folks see them they 
can’t fergit about the wages they’re 
goin’ to draw some day, and be paid 
by a paymaster that’s got all our time 
marked down and what work we done. 

* * * 

“Now don’t the good book tell us 
about these wages. Don’t it tell us 
what we got to do? Don’t it tell us 
that some day we got to be paid off 
and we can’t refuse our wages, be¬ 
cause we earned them. Now if we 
want a big fat envelope with them 
in, we got to earn them and put in 
decent work and full time to get them, 
fer if I wuz goin’ to the paymaster 
ter my money I can only expect to 
git paid fer what I done and not what 
I thought I wuz goin’ to do and never 
did it. So we will look at the sub¬ 
ject in that light. 

* * * 

“Now when we go to work to make 
our livin’ the first thing we got to 
learn is the rules, so we can do our 
bit that will work in with the pro¬ 
duction of the plant, business or farm, 
that will git us money to live. So 
when our young folks are gittin’ ready 
to battle with the world and draw 
wages, we tell them what to expect, 
so they can git big wages. They can’t 
git them by loafin’ and bummin’, they 
got to work, and work hard, to be 
successful. 

* * * 

“And besides this we got to act 
right, be honest and square, don’t lie 
and cheat. Now all these churches we 
see, with their spires pointin’ up, are 
nothin’ less than employment bureaus, 
to hire us to git the right kind of 
wages that count, wages that will last 
forever. Of course there are lots of 
folks that go to them, but they soon 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


93 


fergit their lessons when they git out¬ 
side and start an account on the 
wrong side of the ledger, that will 
make our last pay envelope bulge like 
a piece of tissue paper put in edge¬ 
ways, fer they would sooner git the 
pays that come in the beginin’, than 
the last great one that counts when 
our life is done. 

* * * 

“Now don’t the Bible tell us that 
the wages of sin is death? And don’t 
it tell us all about sin and what it is? 
And don’t it tell us how we can dodge 
it and git the big fat envelope fer 
our last pay? We don’t have to worry 
about the thin ones that come in be¬ 
tween, but the most important is to 
look after the last one. And we don’t 
know when that is cornin’. That last 
pay is just like insurance, if we want 
to git the benefits from it we got to 
pay up and keep square, but if we 
jump the last payment that insurance 
is only worth the paper it is written 
on. 

* * * 

“Accordin’ to the law passed on all, 
we got to work fer our livin’ until we 
take our long sleep. If we don’t work, 
some one will have to, so we can live. 
Some one must work fer us so we can 
live when we are babies. We can’t 
do it and if we have throwed away 
our time and wasted our opportuni¬ 
ties, someone must work fer us when 
we are old. So you see we got a limit¬ 
ed time to make enough money to 
keep us on this earth and the same 
time we got to make wages that is 
goin’ to keep us through eternity. All 
of us is makin’ double wages right at 
the same time. Although we can dodge 
the earthly wages and make someone 
else keep us, we can’t dodge the last 
wages that count through the life that 
ain’t got any end, if we draw the right 
kind of pay. We don’t hear of any 
strikes about this kind of pay; we 
don’t hear of any lockouts, just be¬ 
cause we know that we don’t know 
when we are goin’ to draw it and we 
go in front of the final paymaster. 

• * * * 

“I have travelled along this path¬ 
way of life fer many years. I have 


seen many folks go away to draw their 
last pay. Some we feel are goin’ to. 
git a fat envelope, and others we ain’t 
so sure about. Now what gives us 
this opinion? Only by their kindly 
acts and good things they have done 
while on this earth. Some of these 
folks wuz simply up against it, they 
were scratchin’ and workin’ fer a bare 
livin’, but the good Lord only knows 
how many folks they helped out from 
pain and sufferin’, how much money 
they gave away to assist the needy,, 
fer they knew they wuz goin’ to draw 
big wages when the final pay day 
came around. 

* * * 

“Look at the newspapers. Every 
day we read of the wickedness in 
this world, murders, thefts, liars, blas¬ 
phemy, deceit, lasciviousness and forg¬ 
eries, all committed to git money.. 
None of these folks that do these 
things think of the last great pay day 
that is sure to come. They only think 
of the easy times they might have 
if they got some one’s money, so they 
wouldn’t have to work fer it. Why 
we even got members of churches, 
who like to have folks think they are 
just right, backin’ up evil doers on the 
quiet, so they can git money, and 
thinkin’ they are goin’ to git the right 
kind of a pay when they draw their 
last check. It’s goin’ to be a tough 
blow to them when they git it back 
in their envelope and marked 'No. 
funds.’ 

* * * 

“We read about the labor unions; 
they want an 8-hour work day, so they 
can have more time with their fami¬ 
lies, enjoy life and build up their bank 
accounts, and some of them are ob¬ 
jectin’ to eight hours, thinkin’ that is 
too long. Why man alive, if us farm¬ 
ers only worked eight hours a day, 
one-half the world would starve to. 
death. We got to hustle every hour 
we can, so other folks can live, and 
keep ourselves. If we charged the 
same rate as some of these men who 
are kickin' about wages, they would 
be howlin’ fer more wages so they 
could buy our produce. But I notice 
that most of these fellers who want 



$4 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


more wages don’t want to pay any¬ 
body else what they want, but like 
to rattle the dollars in their own 
.pockets, making others juggle cents. 

* * * 

“Now do these labor unions ask the 
good Lord to help them in their de¬ 
liberations? Do the manufacturers as¬ 
sociations who are fightin’ them, also 
pray fer heavenly guidance? I don’t 
know of any who does, you might, 
and strange to say, many of the folks 
that belong to these organizations are 
members of churches, attendin’ regu¬ 
larly every Sunday; fergittin’ about 
the rules the good Lord has given us, 
and their last pay day, they butt each 
other like a pair of mad bulls and 
think they are goin’ to settle things 
to suit themselves. They don’t care 
how much misery and sufferin’ they 
^cause, so long as they git “theirs.” 

* * * 

“Now the question is, “What causes 
all this contention? There must be 
some reason. And there is. Man 
thinks he is so smart he can improve 
on the great law given him, and that 
is, ‘By the sweat of thy brow shalt 
thou eat bread’ and he don’t need to 
sweat. He wants to take things easy 
while the less fortunate does the 
sweatin’, and as folks are beginin’ to 
think they don’t have to buy mops to 
swab off their faces to let someone 
else loaf, they have started a row so 
they will exude less sweat and they 
•can do some of the loafing also. I 
think there are too many folks in 
this world that won’t work, and it 
iHooks to me as if only one half of 
the world works and the other half 
bums, and the workers got to keep 
•them all. 

* * * 

“Every man has got to produce 
somethin’, fer there never wuz a man 
-created that didn’t do it and he’s goin’ 
to git wages fer his crop, he’s got to 
put out his hands some day and pull 
them in, and we can’t draw anybody 
else’s either. Why I wuz readin’ in 
the paper the other day that if every 
man between the ages of 18 and 50 
would only work five hours a day, six 
•days a week, we would have more 


than plenty fer everybody on this en¬ 
tire earth, because of the improved 
machinery and the wonderful inven¬ 
tions that we are now enjoyin’. But 
from reports we hear of folks starvin’, 
wearin’ rags fer clothes, in spite of 
our farms covered with fruit that is 
rotting because of the cost of shippin’ 
it, and our warehouses stacked with 
clothin’. The good Lord has given us 
enough fer all, but we want to coral 
all the money and we block every 
effort that will relieve the distressed, 
because we want earthly wages and 
ignore our last great pay day. 

* * * 

“It is beyond man to change these 
conditions, it makes no difference how 
much we try. One class of men may 
git big wages, but others must suffer. 
We ain’t got to the point where we 
must depend on God Almighty to help 
us out. We think too much about our 
earthly wages. We are gittin’ too 
proud to acknowledge that we can’t 
do it. We are beginnin’ to think we 
are greater than God Almighty, in 
spite of the fact that He tells us we 
can’t do it, but we don’t believe it. 
We are just like the folks that old 
Noah preached to fer 120 years tellin’ 
them a great flood wuz cornin’. Fer 
that time Noah kept buildin’ the ark 
and still kept on tellin’ them about it. 
Just imagine the jeers and insults he 
put up with fer over a century. But 
when the rains come the laughin' 
stopped, but it wuz too late. 

* * * 

“Now the Bible tells us that the 
wages of sin is death, not life, as we 
think it in this world, but death. But 
the wages of the righteous is eternal 
life. Those wages ain’t gold nor silver 
nor big positions. They ain’t to be 
given to rulers, kings and emperors 
nor even Presidents, if they don’t earn 
them, and the greatest thing about it 
is it don’t make any difference how 
poor we are, we can draw those big 
wages if we make a try fer them. We 
don’t have to belong to any labor un¬ 
ion nor manufacturers associations. 
We don’t need to join any popular fra¬ 
ternal society. All we got to do is 
to get on the job, don’t think so much 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


about our wages of money but go after 
the wages that will be paid us that 
is greater than any insurance policy 
that man can write, fer God Almighty 
issues those wages, and He never 
fails. 

* * * 

' * - 

"‘When I think of the few years we 
have on this earth; some doctors say 
the average length of life is about 
45 years, and takin’ off 20 to git 
ready fer the battle of life, it will 
leave us 25 years fer actual work. 
Even say it is 50 years, which is extra 
long, what does that compare to a life 
that never ends. I don’t think there 
are any folks of any intelligence that 
don’t want to enjoy that kind of a life, 
and the good Book tells us ‘That man 


95 

does not know, nor can he conceive, 
the wonderful things that are in store 
fer us, who can enter into it. 

* * * 

“Is these wages worth tryin’ fer? 
Does the gold or silver of this world 
balance any promise like this? Does 
any labor union or manufacturers aa- 
sociation, any lodge, insurance com¬ 
pany, any beneficial society or employ¬ 
er, say it will be given you fer faithful 
service? There is only one who prom¬ 
ises it, and that is God Almighty, who 
tells us He has got our wages fer us, 
our job is ready, all we have to do 
is take it, and when the proper time 
comes we will git our wages, with that 
great invitation, ‘Enter thou into the 
joy of thy Lord!”’ 





96 - 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


IF WE COULD BE YOUNG AGIN 


“Nobody Thinks They Will be Horrible Examples When 
They First Start Out in Life,” Says Farmer John 


“There wuz an old codger stopped 
at my house the other day,” said 
Farmer John, “lookin’ as if he had a 
tough time of it. His clothes wuz 
badly worn, toes stickin’ out of his 
shoes and a wisp of hair protrudin’ 
through the crown of his hat. Some 
folks would a called him a tramp or 
a vagabond, but I don’t think it’s right 
to put folks down low, so I call him 
a codger, as it has a friendly sound 
anyhow. When I got sight of that old 
feller a knockin’ on my door, I run 
right over to him, fer I wuz afeared 
that my wife would want our bull dog 
to have an interview with him, which 
would add to my visitor’s pain, after 
the chewin’ match wuz over. 

* * * 

“When I got close to him I admit 
he wuzn’t fixed up to invite into my 
front room and kill the fatted calf fer 
him. But he looked hungry and tired, 
so I gave him a seat on the porch and 
had Hiram give him a feed, to make 
him feel better; then had him taken 
to the barn and squirted some water 
on him, which wuz the quickest way 
to git off the dirt, fer he had so much 
of it on him it wuz ready to fall off. 
Then we gave him some old clothes, 
which didn’t have nails fer buttons 
nor holes in them to let the wind 
blow through, and when he done this 
he begun to look like a human bein’ 
with brains, even if he hadn’t use! 
them fer a considerable time. 

* * * 

“We landed back on the porch 
again’ so he could git rested some 
more, and then we got a talkin’ and 
comparin’ things, just to see if the 
way he lived had a lesson fer us. So 
after a few minutes he said ‘If I could 


only be young agin’. If I could only 
live my life over, how different t 
would act.’ Then he told me how 
lucky I wuz, with this nice farm, a 
good house, lots to eat, while he wuz 
nothin’ but an outcast, with no money 
nor friends and nobody carin’ nothin” 
fer him. 

* * * 

“Now his sayin’ that nobody cared 
fer him made me ask, If he cared fer 
anybody. And if he didn’t care fer 
anybody and didn’t try to help folks 
did he expect folks to fall on his. 
neck, takin’ into consideration he had 
just washed the dirt off it, and kiss, 
him, when he looked like an animat¬ 
ed scarecrow that would make my dog. 
want to see how fast he could travel 
by bitin’ at his heels while he wu? 
a goin’. Did he think that my wife 
and children wuz goin’ to shout fer 
joy when he showed up, dirtier than 
one of my hogs after it got through 
wallorin’ in a mud hole, and show him 
the guest room where he would 
be just as much out of place 
as an elephant in a canary bird 
cage. No, siree, if you want folks-, 
to care fer you, you got to show 
that you think somethin’ about them. 
When I first courted my wife she did¬ 
n’t care any more fer me than she did 
a clown in a circus, but after a while- 
I showed her that she wouldn’t be 
happy without me. She took me in 
and we’ve been hangin’ to each other 
ever since. 

* * * 

‘“You say I’m lucky,’ I declared. 
‘There ain’t no luck about it, nothin’ 
but downright hard work. When I 
started out, I didn’t own no farm, I had 
no money, but I saved and scraped and 
worked, and usin’ the brains that the 
good Lord give me, I got this place- 





FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


97 


together, so we can have somethin’ to 
enjoy when we won’t be able to work. 

I don’t know what you done with your 
time that has passed, but it looks to 
me as if you only thought of yourself, 
spendin’ your money, havin’ a good 
time, just like Larry Minks. He wuz 
a smart feller, laughin’ and jokin’ all 
the time, makin’ lots of money, never 
savin’ a cent, havin’ a good time; he 
didn’t care fer anybody, so the town 
has to keep him. Larry wuz mighty 
popular when he spent his money, but 
when he got old and couldn’t make 
any more, then folks begun to preach 
to him what a fool he wuz. And that’s 
all he gits now, sermons by the mile 
and mighty few kind words. And folks 
laugh at him if he wants to tell young 
people how he went wrong, fer they 
take him as a joke. 

* * * 

“ ‘You wished you wuz young agin, 
what good would that do you? If you 
want to start life agin and know what 
you do now, then it would amount to 
somethin’. Why man alive, if we all 
could live our lives over agin, with the 
experience we got now, this world 
would be a paradise to live in. We 
would be breakin’ our necks to help 
The other feller and keep him straight. 
We would stick to the good Lord 
tighter than glue. We would be so 
happy helpin’ someone else, we would¬ 
n’t have time to think about ourselves, 
just as my wife does, takin’ care of 
our family. She is so chuck full of 
love fer us she never thinks of her¬ 
self, so we all got to think of her and 
try and make her happy, and that 
gives us joy, because we think of her 
and she knows it. 

* * * 

“ ‘You think you are down and out, 
just because you throwed away most 
of your life, and you don’t know where 
to start agin. Well there is only one 
place to start and that is right down 
in your own heart, and git that right. 
You got to fergit yourself and think 
of others, if you want others to think 
about you. You got to git their con¬ 
fidence, you can't do that by lookin 
dirty and resemblin’ a savage,. all 
painted up, armed with a war club, 


wantin’ to give everyone that comes 
your way a crack with it. This is a 
peculiar world and we are nothin’ but 
a lot of timid sheep, all engaged in 
watchin’ the other feller, thinkin’ 
everyone we meet is goin’ to do us bad 
and not givin’ credit to any person 
fer good feelin’s. So when a stranger 
shows up, we watch him until he 
shows what he is, what kind of a 
heart he’s got, if he’s got any good 
in him, just like if you wuz goin’ to 
cross my field where I got a big bull, 
you are goin’ to watch that animal 
close, to see what he does. If he be¬ 
gins to paw the ground and beller, it’s 
time fer you to git goin’ quick, you 
ain’t takin’ any chances. 

* * * 

“ ‘Then you got to work, you can’t 
loaf, and stop convincin’ yourself that 
you are workin’ too hard, lettin’ other 
folks pull you through. You can’t do 
that any more than I can expect my 
hired man Hiram to run this farm. 
Now I like Hiram all right and he 
does the best he can, but his thinkin’ 
pan ain’t developed as strong as it 
might be. So I got to tell him what 
to do and if you are like Hiram you 
had better take a course of study in 
the Bible, which will put you straight, 
just like I do when I get stuck and 
don’t know which way to turn. I 
don’t know it all, in fact I don't know 
anything, so I got to fall back on the 
good old book, that most of us is 
afraid to read, but like to preach how 
much we know about it. Even the 
kids know more about the Bible than 
the grown folks, because we make 
them go to Sunday school while we 
are loafin’ and takin’ things easy. 

* * * 

“ ‘Now takin’ your experience in life, 
lookin’ it all over, you know how you 
went bad, just like Tod Peters, a feller 
I knowed once. Tod wuz another 
smart one and when we wuz kids he 
told us how much money he made 
gamblin’ and we w r uz fools fer workin’ 
hard. So w r hen he got older he took 
it up as his steady job, but right 
now Tod’s body is lavin’ in the ceme¬ 
tery. He didn’t make as much money 
as he thought he would and meetin’ 









98 


PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


someone who caught him cheatin’ he 
got a bullet that ended his career 
mighty quick. Of course I ain’t sayin’ 
that everyone who gambles is goin’ to 
git shot, but I’m only tellin’ what hap¬ 
pened to Tod. 

* * * 

“ ‘Now I ain’t sayin’ that we mustn’t 
have a good time, fer we must have 
our pleasures. But those pleasures 
are cultivated, just like I plant seeds 
on my farm. I can’t let them grow 
wild, fer if I do my crops won’t a- 
mount to anything. This pleasure 
idee is just the same. Just because 
we have a good time, it ain’t any rea¬ 
son why we should devote all our 
time to it, any more than I do pie. 
Now I like pie and my wife makes 
the best I ever tasted, but if I keep 
on eatin’ pie somethin’ is goin’ to 
git wrong with me and my stomach is 
goin’ to object, then I’m goin’ to git 
sick. If I git sick, I can’t work. So if 
we compare our pleasures with eatin’ 
pie we got to watch ourselves, fer it 
will make us sick and we can’t work. 

* * * 

“‘You say you want work. Well I 
can give you a job, if you know any¬ 
thing about farmin’, and if you don’t 
I’ll have to teach you. But farmin’ 
is hard work, we got to keep up with 
the seasons; if we don’t the season 
will git ahead of us. Now that is 
just the same way with life, we got 
to keep up with it, fer as we git older 
we got to show what we have done. 
We don’t expect much from the young 
folks, but we do expect somethin’ from 
the older ones. It ain’t necessary fer 
us to show a big bunch of money fer 
our life’s work, but it is necessary 
fer us to show that we have lived 
right, helped the other feller and be 
a shinin’ example to the younger folks. 
That’s very lackin’ among the older 
folks of today, fer if it wuzn’t we 
wouldn’t have so many wild kids float¬ 
in’ around, fer they are imitatin’ us 
and addin’ more to it, we ain’t in it 
with them. 

* * * 

“ ‘There is no use of you wishin’ you 
could live your life over agin. No 
doubt you had a good mother, who 


tried to make you do right. There is 
mighty few boys and girls that ain’t 
got good mothers, who want them to 
be a success in life. Didn’t you ever 
see the birds teachin’ their young to 
fly, so they could make their way in 
the world? Have you ever noticed a 
cat tryin’ to show her kittens how 
to catch mice and rats? Nearly every 
animal teaches its young how to git 
along, and our mothers are just the 
same. So if we don’t pay any atten¬ 
tion, we lose out and when we git 
up in years we begin to regret and 
wish we could be young agin, so we 
could rectify the mistakes we have 
made. But we all still have the same 
advice given us, the same Bible to 
guide us, but because we are young 
we think we are smarter than the old 
folks and we begin to tear things 
loose and we can dodge the traps that 
is bein’ laid fer us, just like some fel¬ 
lers who wuz sailin’ down the Niaga¬ 
ra river havin’ a good time. Folks 
begun to warn them the falls wuz only 
a short distance away, but they paid 
no attention until they heard the roar 
of the failin’ torrents. Then they be¬ 
gun to try and pull back, but it wuz 
too late, the current got them and 
over they went. 

* * * 

“ ‘If we could be young agin. How 
many folks have uttered the same 
wish? How many tears could have 
been saved? How much pain would 
have been averted? How happier a 
world we could be livin’ in? But just 
like the fellers that went over the 
falls, it wuz too late. Time can never 
be recalled and we must suffer the 
consequences of our own follies, and 
not alone us, but everyone with whom 
we come in contact. We have our 
guides, the lives of successful men to 
show us the way; the failures in life 
to show us what to avoid. All we 
have to do is to fergit ourselves, listen 
to those whose hair is gray with age, 
read our Bibles and follow the right 
patfi. 

* * * 

“ ‘You never yet saw any man or 
woman who was down and out, noth¬ 
in 5 to look forward to, that ever 


i 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


thought they wuz goin’ to get that 
way. when they wuz young and begun 
to fool with the things that caused 
that result. That condition come on 
so gradually they didn’t notice it. At 
first they would look with pity on 
failures like them. After awhile they 
got used to that kind of society and 
wuzn’t so particular about where they 
went and who they associated with, 
fer they only thought of havin’ a good 
time, and they got in it deeper and 
deeper. All at once they begun to re¬ 
alize where they were at; they had no 
respectable friends, they went to ques¬ 
tionable places, they got homeless, 
and you see the result, just like a 
lire, which leaves nothin’ but charred 
embers, fer they played with the fire 
and got burnt. Nobody wants to be 
a horrible example and they don’t 
think they will ever be one, until it’s 
too late; youth has flown, old age is 
on them, they are desolate of every¬ 
thing that makes us truly happy. It’s 
no wonder they want to live their life 
over agin, so they can act right. 


99 

“ ‘It seems to me that the condition 
that prevails on this earth and per¬ 
mitted to exist by our good Lord, is 
done fer a purpose. We don’t know 
why; probably to teach a lesson 
throughout this great universe. It 
must be so, fer look at the grand 
promises given to us in the Bible, if 
we only live and act right. Created 
to live only fer a short time and then 
death comes upon us. We can’t take 
anything with us and all we can leave 
is our record of good deeds. Then we 
are promised eternal life if we do 
these things. When that happens 
and we can look back and see what 
selfishness and sin brings us and the 
results of it, then we will see what 
we were created fer; to do good and 
love each other. Then under the sup¬ 
ervision of our good Lord we will 
enter into a never ending life of joy 
and happiness, fer we will all know 
how to live and act, and that money 
ain’t everything and that love and 
doin’ good is the only thing that will 
pull us through.’ ” 


> _ 9 








FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


100 

i * 


WHO ARE OUR FRIENDS? 

“Friends Worth Havin’ Ain’t Pushin’ Themselves On You, 
Until You Get Measured Up First,” Says Farmer John 


“I wuz a standin’ on a street corner 
the other day talkin’ to Dave Boggs, 
a member of our church,” said Farm¬ 
er John to me one day, "when along 
come a strange lookin’ feller who stop¬ 
ped and spoke to Dave. Then he in¬ 
troduced me to him, sayin’ it wuz a 
friend of his. Well when this friend 
begun to talk about every other word 
wuz an oath. So I thought that fer 
a church member, Dave wuz pickin’ 
out some peculiar folks as his friends, 
fer we had to listen to a lot of gossip 
about other folks that I knowed wuz 

all right. So I asked this feller if 
the men he wuz talkin’ about wuz 
his friends and he lold me they wuz. 
Then I told him that he had a queer 
way of showin’ his friendship by talk¬ 
in’ that way about them. As I con-, 
sidered them friends of mine, I asked 
if he would let me tell these :nen 
what he said about them. 

* * * 

"He certainly did object and said if 
I wuz a friend of his I wouldn’t say 
anything about it, fer it would git 
him into trouble. Then I told this 
feller that it tock me sometimes yea s 
to pick my friends and as I had only 
just met him I would have to put 
him on my waitin’ list, to see if he 
would measure up fer a friend, but if 
I took his conversation as a sample 
of his friendship I didn’t think I cared 
fer that kind. Of course he got insult¬ 
ed and told Dave not to introduce him 
to any more "Rubes,” who hadn't 
brains enough to keep their mouths 
shut. Dave blushed clear to the back 
of his ears, right to the bald spot on 
the back of his head, and the feller 
left us, and I wuz mighty glad of :'t. 


"Now as I knowed Dave fer years, 
and he knowed me, I asked him if 
he had more friends like the gent that 
just left us. He said no, and he just 
considered him a friend because he 
always spoke to him whenever they 
met. Then I wanted to know if he 
always talked about other folks like 
he did to us and if he did, what did 
he wa’nt to listen to it fer, because if 
that feller talked about folks he said 
wuz friendly to him, Dave would get 
his roastin’ and be the subject of talk 
to someone else. 

* * * 

"So I advised Dave to study his Bi¬ 
ble and learn what friends meant, and 
git his ear stoppers out, so he wouldn’t 
hear this talk and not encourage it. 
That feller wuz no friend to anybody, 
he didn’t know what friendship wuz, 
and if he thought he had a liiend jn 
that feller he had better fergit it, fer 
he acted like Josh Pliggins bull dog. 
That animal would rush out to folks 
waggin’ its tail in the most friendly 
manner, and when you wuzn’t lookin’’ 
it would sink its teeth into the calf 
of your leg, and if you didn’t give it 
a crack with somethin’ it would wag 
its tail some more then git another 
holt. 

* * * 

"Now in thinkin’ over this subject 
of friends I can’t help sayin’ that lots 
of folks are giftin’ fooled by this so- 
called friend idee and they don’t real¬ 
ize it until they git a grab on them, 
just like Higgin’s bull pup, which used 
its tail to show friendship. But these 
folks use their hands and are willin’- 
to shake, at any time or place, iust 
to win you over. These fellers who 
are friends to everybody ain’t friends 
to nobody, fer we can’t be friends to 
God Almighty and the devil at the' 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES' 


same time. The feller that puts his 
time in hammerin’ and roastin’, and 
wants you to keep it secret, won’t do 
you a bit of good when you need a 
true friend. 

* * * 

“Friends worth havin’ ain’t pushin’ 
themselves on you, fer true and hon¬ 
est tolks want to know what you are, 
■fer they don’t want to make a mis¬ 
take either, and be sure they ain’t fak¬ 
in’ a snake into their confidence, that’s 
liable to turn any minute and poison 
them and everything they bite. We 
don’t have to try and make friends. 
We can’t make zhem, fer they grow; 
fer friends that are made will wilt 
and fade away when adversity comes. 
W e can have thousands of acquaint¬ 
ances, but we are fortunate indeed to 
have one friend among them. And it 
will be the one we least suspect, who 
will turn up to help in the time of 
need. 

3 s * 

“It appears to be a regular mania 
fer folks to claim friendship to those 
who have money and influence. They 
think it sounds big to tell about some 
prominent man who is a friend of 
theirs. Many of these kind of folks 
just saw them once and wouldn’t rec¬ 
ognize them agin, any‘ more than a 
tom cat could recognize his grand¬ 
father. If you don’t believe this, just 
try and visit them and see how far 
you git. You have just about as much 
chance to win out as I have beatin’ 
an express train in a hundred mile 
dash, fer you can’t force friendship 
any more than I can juggle a streak 
of lightnin’ on the end of my nose, fer 
that kind of friendship lasts just about 
as long. 

* * * 

“A friend is one that rejoices in 
your success. He don’t try to break 
down your reputation. He won’t 
scatter bad stories about you. He don’t 
envy you, because he wants to help 
you and do you good. You can tell 
him about your ambitions, your adver¬ 
sities, and git his advice. If you have 
a friend like that you want to be 
careful and not do anything that will 
destroy his confidence in you, fer if 


101 

you betray that friend and cause him 
sorrow, you are the false friend and 
not him. We can’t play the double 
game and expect everyone else to be 
true to us. Friendship is a delicate 
flower, hard to cultivate and easy to 
destroy. So it must be grown in the 
right kind of soil to amount to any¬ 
thing. 

* * * 

“When we meet our acquaintances, 
claimin’ to be our friends, and they 
want us to do things that ain’t right, 
they ain’t friends, fer they would-des¬ 
troy you. If they want you to gamble, 
drink and carouse around, that would 
make you neglect your work, encour¬ 
agin’ you to form bad habits, because 
they call it ‘havin’ a good time’ and 
jolly you along by pleasin’ speeches, 
you want to watch out, fer they are 
nothin’ but false friends, nothin’, but 
shadows, standin’ out in the bright 
sunshine of success, but will disappear 
in the darkness of adversity. So if 
you think a shadow is gom’ to help 
you, just stick to it and see where 
you will land. You might as well 
try and paint a beautiful picture on 
a cloud as to place any dependence 
in those kind of folks. 

* * * 

“You git among the crowds and 
what are they, nothin’ but a collec¬ 
tion of faces, whose talk amounts to 
about as much as the poundin’ on a 
bass drum, because love and friend¬ 
ship is absent. If you think a crowd 
is your friend just you tell them about 
your hopes and fears and see how 
quick they will give you the laugh. 
Notice how the canker of malice, envy 
and detraction is fillin’ up their 
hearts, while with extended arms they 
will laud you to the skies. You won’t 
find true friendship there; you won’t 
find solace and comfort you need sore¬ 
ly, but if you are seekin’ adulation, 
then git the crowds together and they 
will shout and yell fer you, because 
they will be after you hard, and you 

will have to pay the bill. 

* * * 

“That old philosopher Socrates, was 
asked one time why he built such a 
small house and all he said wuz, ‘small 




102 


FARMER .JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


as it is, I wish I could fill it with 
friends.’ He didn’t want a crowd, but 
he wanted friends, those who he could 
talk to, who had interest in him, fer 
he knew that a cheerful and happy 
friend is so great a blessin’ that has 
no comparison. Millions of people 
knew him, yet of those millions he 
did not have enough friends to fill 
his small house. Yet another cele¬ 
brated Grecian philosopher said ‘It 
wuz no less an evil fer a man to be 
without friends than the heavens to 
be without a sun’, fer it’s a mighty 
poor dog, that ain’t got a friend of 
some kind; so we want to pick out 
the right kind. 

* * * 

“The best way to have friends is 
to be a friend yourself, fer we can’t 
expect to git any more than we give, 
when it comes to that, fer we want 
our friends to be straight and honest, 
and so we got to travel the same 
road ourselves, so folks will under¬ 
stand us, fer they ain’t sittin’ down 
and makin’ a study of us. They don’t 
have to, fer they know that we will 
try and do right. But these folks that 
watch our every move and note what 
we are doin’ and then after professin’ 
great friendship fer us, proceed to al¬ 
most skin us alive out of everything 
we have, are nothin’ but false friends 
that are tryin’ to make us switch off 
the straight road so we will fall by 
the wayside, and like vultures, feed 
upon their victims. 

* * * 

'‘We can’t go through this world 
without makin’ enemies, any more 
than we can git a cold without sneez¬ 
in’, fer both of them is mighty annoy¬ 
in’ and we got to take care of them, 
and the friendship medicine is a 
mighty good dose to take, fer if we 
didn’t have our friends, our enemies 
would soon overcome us. It’s friend¬ 
ship and friends that keeps the world 
together. It increases our faith in 
each other, it stimulates our ambition 
and brings out the best that is in us; 
it developes love for each other; it’s 
the jewell whose value cannot be es¬ 
timated. 


“A friend is one whose opinion we 
can rely on, because of his justice 
and sincerity. Our pride is often 
wounded by their criticisms, but when 
we think it over we can realize the 
value of it, fer they can often see 
things that we can’t, and save us- 
from danger, like my hired man Hiram 
did me one day when I wuz stand in r 
out in the road lookin’ at the clouds 
and he gave me a slam with a club, 
that hurt mighty bad, and made me 
jump. But I had no more than moved 
when a runaway team dashed by right 
where I stood. Then I forgot that 
bang, fer it probably saved my life. 

* * * 

“Now just because ye can’t have all 
the true friends we want, ain’t any 
reason why we should ignore folks 
and give them the glassy eye, makin r 
them think we are better than they 
are, or givin’ them a chilly stare, that 
would freze up their good feelin’s to¬ 
ward us, fer it ain’t our business to 
turn ourselves into a refrigeratin’ 
plant and kill the warm germs of good 
fellowship to all who know us. We 
must have a friendly feelin’ to every¬ 
body, so that they will have one to¬ 
ward us, which is sometimes hard to 
do, particularly when we know that 
we are dealin’ with enemies; fer one 
enemy can do us more harm than a 
hundred friends can rectify, just like 
as if we wuz walkin’ in the garden, 
where everything wuz fine, and along 
come a stray bee and when it got 
after us it would soon make us take 
to our heels. 

* * * 

“And that’s just how our enemies M 
act. They give us a jab with their 
stinger whenever we least expect it 
and all the friends we have won’t 
save us, if that bee gits busy on the 
lee side of us, and we ain’t lookin’ 
fer it, fer we must remember that 
even our enemies have their friends 
that are goin’ to stick to them. The 
only thing that will pull us out is to 
show by the way we live and act that 
we are tryin’ to do right. 

* * * 

“But we don’t have to depend on 
earthly friends to pull us along, fer 







FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


103 


at that they can’t be always depended 
on. So if we take our Bibles and 
study what it says about friends, and 
then obey what we read, we got the 
best friend on our side that will never 
forsake us. But to get that friend we 
got to act right and encourage friend¬ 
ly feelin’s toward everybody. Then 
it ain’t our fault if things don’t come 
right. Our enemies can’t win out, fer 
there’s another time cornin’ that’s 
goin’ to do somethin’ toward this 
squarin’ business. 

‘And as the years roll by we will 


tl-ink of our dear friends that have 
left us and others take their places. 
The memories of the past come and 
the thoughts that fill our mind are 
free from selfishness and ambition. 
We can contemplate the purer and 
kindlier traits of ihe soul and the 
sense of lonliness may come upon us, 
but to those friends who are still 
with us time and changes more strong¬ 
ly cement our friendships, which will 
last until we are to be called to our 
last resting place, to await the wel¬ 
coming call of the grand awakenin’.” 


104 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


MAKIN’ OUR GOODS 


Don’t Git the Idee That the Man Who Works With His 
Hands Does It All Fer Man Can’t Create Anything 


“I was a drivin’ along the road one 
day, goin’ to market,” said Farmer 
John, “when a feller hailed me and 
asked me fer a ride to town. So bein' 
accommodatin’ I told him to climb on 
the wagon, which he done. As my 
mules was trottin’ along easy and we 
wuz makin’ good time, I asked him 
what he worked at and what he done 
ter a livin’. So he told me he wuz a 
workin’ in a belt factory, where he 
made belts, the kind that we put 
around our waists to keep our clothes 
from tumblin’ off us, but he wuzn’t 
doin’ anything now, as he wuz on a 
strike fer more money. 

* * * 

“Now this young feller claimed that 
labor done all the work and as the 
bosses and owners done nothin’, the 
men were entitled to the money, capi¬ 
talists never helped any, fer they 
never worked, but the fellers in the 
shops and factories done it all and 
nobody but them had anything to do 
with makin’ the belts. Now I ain’t 
claimin’ those fellers wuz wrong fer 
wantin’ more money, but they wuz 
when they said they done all the work 
to make that belt. He talked just like 
my hired man Hiram when I told him 
to plant the potatoes. When they 
come up nice and big, he liked to blow 
about the stuff he raised, when he 
didn’t do anything but put in the 
eyes and cover them up. 

* * * 

“So when I begun to think the thing 
over, I soon found out that there wuz 
a bunch of folks concerned in makin’ 
that belt that that feller never con¬ 
sidered, and the fellers that worked 
in the shops didn’t do it all, any more 
than Mike Dugan, the hod carrier, 


built the State capital building, even 
if he did carry the bricks to put up 
the chimley. Now in lookin’ over one 
of these belts I saw it wuz made of 
leather, all varnished and polished, 
with a purty buckle on it and wuz fine 
lookin’ just like Dingy Perks, after 
he come out of the barber shop, all 
shaved and washed up. Now Dingy 
wuzn’t much fer looks before ho went 
in, but when he come out I didn’t 
hear anything about the barber claim¬ 
in’ he manufactured Dingy, fer if he 
had, in about two days the folks would 
have been laughin’ at him fer turnin’ 
out an object like that, fer Dingy’s 
beauty didn’t last very long, when the 
washin’ wore away. 

* * * 

“Now when we’re considerin’ who 
made this belt, we got to find out 
about the materials used. The one 
I saw wuz made of leather. How did 
the leather git into the factory? Did 
the factory hands make it? They did 
not, fer that leather wuz the hide of 
some animal. Now who raised the 
animal? That wuz the farmer’s job. 
To keep that animal alive so it would 
grow big, he had to raise the feed to 
do it. So we know the farmer had 
somethin' to do with makin’ that belt. 
They had to sow the seed, plow the 
ground, keep down the weeds, so a 
crop would come up to feed the ani¬ 
mals whose hide furnished the leather. 

* * * 

“Now the farmer has to use lots of 
tools in his line of business, and most 
of them are made out of iron and 
steel. So we find out that the great 
steel mills had somethin’ to do with 
that belt. There ain’t a pound of 
steel turned out that everybody who 
works there don’t do something to 
make that steel, from the general 








105 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


manager down and he wouldn’t 
amount to much if the stockholders 
and capitalists didn’t put up the 
money to keep things goin’. 

* * * 

“Steel is made out of iron and other 
kind of metals that we git from ore. 

So now we got the miners into the 
makin’ of that belt. It takes coal to 
melt these ores and it takes locomo¬ 
tives and cars to bring the ore to the 
mill. Besides somebody owned the 
land where the mines wuz, and the 
shop men didn’t make the land, nor 
the ores, or even the coal. So if we 
had no land we would have no mines 
with coal and ores in them, fer they 
wuz the work of God Almighty and no 
one else. 

* * * 

“Now who builds the railroads and 
boats to haul this stuff and where did 
the money come from to build them. 
I venture to say there are mighty few 
shop men who bought any stock to 
build railroads. Railroads can’t be 
built without engineers and surveyors, 
who have to study and work to learn 
the business. The capitalists, engi¬ 
neers and surveyors ain’t shop men 
but they all helped to make that belt 
just the same. So we soon learn that 
folks that never seen that belt helped 
to make it, just the same. Now the 
belt has to be made in a buildin’, all 
equipped fer that purpose. So the 
architect wuz called in to make the 
plans, the lumberman to furnish the 
materials and the bricklayers and car¬ 
penters to erect the buildin’. 

* * * 

“So now we got the bricklayers and 
lumbermen into the belt-makin’ busi¬ 
ness. To make brick w r e got to git the 
mud, mould the bricks, build kilns to 
dry them in; to git the lumber we send 
men into the forest to chop down the 
trees and build planin’ mills to saw 
them up into boards. All this requires 
tools, men and money. We got to have 
nails to fasten the lumber together 
and mortar and cement to hold the 
bricks. So just think of the army of 
men who already is mixed up in this 
belt business. 


“And all this has got to be done be¬ 
fore we can make even one belt and 
more to, because the buildin’ must 
have machinery put up, which some¬ 
body invented. So now we got the in¬ 
ventors and thinkers into the game, 
besides all the other folks we men¬ 
tioned. Then we got the tanners to 
fix up the leather so it can be used. 
Then the shop men git at it, and after 
they have cut, sewed, punched, 
pressed and polished it, the buckle is 
Put on and the belt is ready fer the 
market. After that they are put in 
paper boxes and again we got some 
more men helpin’ out. Look at the big 
paper mills makin’ paper, the massive 
machinery used, the operations re¬ 
quired, the chemicals to git it right, 
fer nearly everyone of these branches 
must have chemists to test and try out 
their products and keep on huntin’ fer 
new ideas to improve. They all done 
their bit to make that belt. 

* * * 

“Now no shop man can be a chem¬ 
ist, any more than a chemist can be 
a shop man. They are different lines 
of work. Then again, we got to take 
the varnish makers into the gang, fer 
they make the stains and the polish 
and this takes more studyin’ and ex¬ 
perimentin’ so that the polish will not 
wear off easy. Why man alive, if we 
git thinkin’ that only the fellers that 
work in the shop does the whole thing 
about makin’ this belt, we had better 
change our mind mighty quick. Again 
brushes are used to put on the stain 
and the varnish, so we got the brush 
makers in on it too and if we want 
to git to the bottom of this whole thing 
we got to look into the brush makin’ 
business. Besides this, we got to 
bring into this subject the wooden 
box maker, to furnish boxes to pack 
our belts in. This requires more spe¬ 
cial machinery and more men to con¬ 
sider in makin’ this belt. 

* ■ * * 

“Now after we got the belt made we 
got to sell it. To do this we got to 
advertise, get out beautiful pictures 
that attract. This stunt calls in the 
printers, label makers, the news¬ 
papers, salesman, shop keepers, a reg- 


1C6 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


ular army to be added to the already 
large crowd that is helpin’ makin’ the 
belt. So just think of the brains and 
energy demanded 10 get folks to buy 
these belts. And that ain’t all, fer 
we ain’t got the buckle makers into 
the mixup. That brings in the nickle, 
gold and silver refiners, which makes 
our belt makers a still larger crowd. 
And that ain’t all, we use telephones, 
telegraph, electricians in makin’ that 
belt. Why the more I think of it, the 
bigger the army gits that’s concerned 
in makin’ that belt. 

* * * 

“Takin’ the Bible fer it, I find that 
the belt wuz about the first invention 
that wuz ever made, fer didn’t Adam 
make a girdle when he wuz chased out 
of the Garden of Eden. And isn’t a 
girdle a belt to go around the waist? 
So we’re improvin’ on the first design, 
which wuz made out of fig leaves and 
considerin’ the strain we put on them 
now, by pullin’ our belts so tight to 
try and make folks think we got a 
waist like a wasp, when its more like 
a balloon in its natural state, we had 
to forsake a fig leaf belt and fall back 
on leather, which is stronger fer our 
purpose. Then again if we’d stuck 
to fig leaf belts it might seriously in¬ 
terfere with the fig industry and 
wouldn’t be so particularly entisin’ to 
look at after a couple of days’ wear. 
* * * 

“Now I think that it is only jealousy 
that makes folks talk like that young 
feller. He got the idee that his crowd 
does all the work because they ain’t 
got a big bank roll and just to make 
folks think how hard they work they 
git off this stuff and say it so much, 
that they begin to believe it them¬ 
selves. But there ain’t nothin’ to it, 
fer the makin’ of that belt is the work 
of thousands of folks that they never 
saw, nor they the belt, but their serv¬ 
ices or like services from some one 
else is necessary to do the job. I 
ain’t mentioned every one that I 
should in makin' this belt, so when 
you git by yourself just think the mat¬ 
ter over and I know you can mark 
down some more folks that I ain’t 
spoke of. 


“It is nothin’ more than co-operation 
that makes us enjoy the things given, 
to us. Too many folks think they are 
so independent that they can git along 
by themselves, but they can’t any more 
than a one-legged man can walk a 
tight rope without a balancin’ pole. 
If we want to git along we got to 
have a government, so we can have 
system. We can’t make anything by 
riotin’ and fightin’. I bought a bull 
pup once to catch rats, but he wuz 
a failure, because he was too inter¬ 
ested in dog fights, so I had to git rid 
of him. We can’t work and fight at 
the same time, any more than that 
dog I had to attend to the rats. 

* * * 

“Now the Bible tells us that the 
good Lord made the earth and every¬ 
thing on it and in it fer us to use. 
Placed in different spots on this earth 
wuz gold, silver, coal, iron and other 
ores. How we shout fer joy whenever 
we find these materials we can use. 
He makes our stuff to grow so that we 
can take care of ourselves, but we got 
to work to develope these things and 
utilize them fer our own good. This 
little study applies to everything we 
use at the present day. Man can do 
nothin’ by himself and we must’nt git 
the idee that we can. Try it once and 
find out. 

* * * 

“The wonderful things we enjoy to¬ 
day is the result of centuries of work 
and experimentin’. We’re just findin* 
out what a wonderful earth we live 
on. Folks that lived centuries ago 
didn’t think of telephones, automo¬ 
biles, flying machines, telegraph, elec¬ 
tric lights, radio and wireless, sub¬ 
marine boats and many other things 
we now enjoy. No doubt some of them 
tried to make them, but failed, al¬ 
though the principals of these inven¬ 
tions always existed. But they never 
discovered the secret of ihow to ap¬ 
ply them. They too have done many 
things that have been lost during the 
ages and we, with all our powers of 
research, have never been able to 
resurect them. Man cannot create- 
anything, all we can do is to utilize 
what is given us. Study and work. 



FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


-and we are rewarded by marvelous 
discoveries, that lighten our pathway 
of life. 

* * * 

“Now what I want to bring out is, 
that there ain’t no one man can do 
these great things I’m speakin’ about, 
not even a little belt; it’s nothin’ but 
co-operative effort that took years to 
develope. It took the thinker as well 
as the worker, but still all were work- 
in’; some with their hands and some 
with their brains. As one thing comes 
to light, others rapidly followed. Robt. 
Stephenson invented the first locomo¬ 
tive, but he didn’t produce the hugh 
ones of today. Labor of itself can 
do but little and a tub full of gold 
can’t build the monster ships of to¬ 
day but combined we all can enjoy the 
results. 

* * * 

“But in spite of the combination of 
labor and capital we can do nothin’ 
except the good Lord has given us the 
materials to work with. If they are 
wantin’ our efforts are in vain. But 
He has given them to us and we are 


107: 

like children who have been given a 
new toy. When we discover some¬ 
thing new that can be used fer our 
benefit. The earth is still of undis¬ 
covered good things that will come to 
light, which will be brought out im 
due time. So we then should not 
claim that we are the whole thing, fer 
we have to depend on the good Lord 
fer all these things, and these won¬ 
derful inventions which we are now 
enjoyin’ will be as nothin’ compared 
to those that will come. 

* * * 

“Fer I think that the younger gen¬ 
eration will see electricity taken from 
the atmosphere, that all our immenso 
water power will be used to give us 
light and heat, so we won’t have to 
depend on coal to supply our wants. 
Even now the days of the trolleys a r e 
in wane, the advent of which was 
hailed with delight. I won’t see it, 
but the advance of time will bring new 
conditions that will make all who are 
livin’ praise the good Lord fer the 
wonderful things He has permitted to> 
come to pass.” 


108 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


THE VALUE OF A DAY 


The Days That Are Past Are Numbered With the Untold 
Ages That Are Gone, Fer the Older We Git 
the Faster Time Flies 


“It seems to me that folks don’t 
realize the value of one day,” remark¬ 
ed Farmer John, at one of his visits 
to my office. “Many folks think that 
the loss of one day don’t amount to 
anything, specially when they are 
young and strong and their life is be¬ 
fore them, fer they think there are 
more days a cornin’ and when they 
fritter away some of them they figure 
-on makin’ up the lost time in the fu¬ 
ture. This wuz a favorite trick of 
Dobs Bilkens, a neighbor of mine, 

who always put off everything he 
•could until the next day, fer he claim¬ 
ed that there wuz no use of bein’ so 
persnickety as to do things right on 
the jump. Now Dobs one time bought 
a lot of goats, which he let run wild 
in the woods. He wuz told he had bet¬ 
ter look after them, fer they would 
git wild and butt into everything they 
saw. One day Dobs went into the 
woods to look after them, and he got 
such a bumpin’ that he had to stand 
up fer a week. So you see that while 
Dobs wuz takin’ things easy those 
goats wuz gettin’ wilder and Dobs got 
his bumps fer neglectin’ his days. 

* * * 

“This idee that time can be made 
up and we can gain what we lost, is 
a fake; nothin’ to it and a lazy man’s 
argument, fer if we were on the job 
we wouldn’t say it. It’s just about as 
clever as some of the wisdom that 
“Pill” Barry used to spout. We called 
him “Pill” because his stories wuz so 
hard to swallow. One day “Pill” in¬ 
sisted that if he cut off his mule’s 
tail it would grow another. To prove 
this he got out his ax, made the mule 
3 ay down, put the tail on a block and 


whack. It wuz a good shot, fer that 
mule flew about ten feet in the air, 
all of it except its tail, which still 
laid peacefully on the ground. Until 
it breathed it’s last breath, that mule 
wuz minus its “caudle appendage” and 
“Pill’s” wise sayin’ got a severe shock, 
which lasted longer than that experi¬ 
enced by the mule. 

* * * 

“Now that is just the same with 
these lost days, they can never be re¬ 
covered when lost, just like that 
mule’s tail. One day will follow an¬ 
other, but no one ever saw two days 
alike and never will, something will 
be different about them. When we re¬ 
view them after we have lost them, 
we begin to think how much we would 
have been ahead if we hadn’t lost 
them, fer if we set out to do a thing 
on Monday and put it off until Tues¬ 
day, we wouM be using Tuesday that 
should been devoted to other things, 
instead of the work we should have 
done on Monday. So we have lost 
that day, never to be regained or made 
up, and the more we put off things 
the worse conditions git, just like as 
if the roof of my barn wanted repairin’ 
and I put off doin’ it, the first thing 
I knowed the timbers would be gittin’ 
rotten and instead of only havin’ a 
patch to put on, I would have to build 
the whole thing new. That is just 
the way with lost days. 

* * * 

“Now I’ve done a little figurin’ about 
this question, just to see how many 
days we actually have, to make good 
in. We ain’t got so many after all, 
even if we do live to be three score 
years and ten, as the appointed 
time fer man as the Bible states, when 









FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


we take out all the Sundays, holidays, 
vacations, bein’ sick and all such like. 
Of course the insurance companies 
say the average length of life is now 
about 50 years, but we will take the 
longer span to calculate on. 

* * * 

“Now the youngsters, up to 18 years 
of age, ain’t got many responsibilities, 
so we take that from the 70 years, 
which leaves 52 to make good in. 
Countin’ 365 days to the year, this 
gives us 18,980 days to git ready fer¬ 
tile end. We take away one day each 
week fer Sunday, which amounts to 
2,711 days. Then we have six holi¬ 
days each year, which totals 312 more 
days to .deduct, which leaves us just 
15,957 days we can use. But takin’ 
away two weeks fer vacations and 
sickness each year, we got to take 
off 728 more days and we find that 
we only have 15,229 days left to us to 
work, make our way in the world, sup¬ 
port our dependents and do what good 
we can to help the other feller. 

* * * 

“Now this figurin’ represents 24 
hour days, so when we take out the 
time fer sleepin’ and rest, we pull our 
total down to about one half, which 
gives us about 31 years of actual work 
and addin’ our 18 years to it, which 
we took off before we started, gives 
us 49 years, as the insurance esti¬ 
mates. So you see we got 20 years 
we can’t use because of conditions. 
Of course I’m figurin’ on folks havin’ 
pretty good health and don’t git in 
any accidents, which are bound to 
come up at any time. I know that 
some folks will say I don’t know what 
I am talkin’ about, but suppose they 
git out their pencils and do some 
figurin’ and see what they can git out 
of it. 

* * * 

“Most folks don’t think of these 
things, but they are worth consider¬ 
in’ fer they are important to all of 
us, fer they don’t watch the days, just 
like a fence I wuz goin’ to build one 
.time, I figured I needed 10,000 slats 
fer it and got them. One dark night 
some one slipped up and stole a lot 
of them and as I couldn’t git any 


109- 

more, that fence wuz never finished,, 
but it would a been if I had takea 
care of the slats. So it is just the 
same with life, we can’t live a com¬ 
plete good life if we don’t watch our 
days. 

* * * 

“There are many ways we can lose- 
days without loafin’ or doin’ any work. 
Every day we put in fightin’ and scrap- 
pin’ and tryin’ to git square Avith those 
we think didn’t treat us right, is lost 
days, fer we’re usin’ our energies and 
brains on somethin’ that don’t amount 
to anything after its all over, fer that 
kind of work won’t do anybody any 
good and it’s nothin’ to be proud of,. 
just like my hired man Hiram, when 
he got mad at one of my mules and 
gave it a beatin’. When he wuzn’t 
lookin’ that mule changed its position 
and gave Hiram an awful kick that 
laid him up fer three days. If he- 
got anything out of his actions, except 
pain, only he know, fer he groaned, 
every time he rolled in his bed. 

* * * 

“So Hiram lost three days that went 
against his account. When we think 
these mean actions over, we can’t be 
proud of them, we’re simply loosin’ 
out, fer we made matters worse. I’ve 
read of lots of folks drinkin’ and car¬ 
ousin’ around, thinkin’ they’re havin’ a 
good time Avhile they wuz doin’ it, 
but the next mornin’, after it wuz all 
over and their heads wuz achin’ and 
they feelin’ sicker than a poisoned 
pup, it wuzn’t so much fun after all, 
fer they wuz stealin’ the pickets from- 
their fence of life. 

* * * 

“We’re livin’ in a mighty fast age, 
travelin’ like a streak of lightnin’. We- 
got all kinds of things around us that 
tempt us to throw away our time. Of 
course they’re invitin’, and if we fall 
fer them and stick to them they will* 
git such a hold on us that will tie us 
mighty tight, if we ain’t careful. I’ve 
heard young folks wish they had some 
one else’s money, so they could have- 
what they call an easy time and 
wouldn’t have to work, instead of hust¬ 
lin’ around fer themselves. When folks-. 


110 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


git like this, they are throwin’ away 
their days. 

* * * 

“This wishin’ you had some one’s 
money is the first symptom of the 
loafin’ bug disease. It is just like you 
wishin’ you had the small pox, only 

worse, fer it’s harder to drive it out 
of your body, because you ain’t quar¬ 
antined and you ain’t got any doctors 
to look after you. It’s catchin’ and 
you will spread it and give it to some 
one else, fer a good many folks think 
that loafin’ is an easy job, when it’s 
the hardest thing we’re up against. 
Why if these kind of folks had Alad¬ 
din’s famous lamp they would wear it 
out rubbin’ it, so they could blow in 
money, fer easy money is more slip¬ 
pery than an eel, it gits away from 
us and then we want some more, we 
didn’t work fer. We got to git after 
these bugs that will take away our 
days, just like the ones that git on my 
potatoes. If I let them alone I will 
git no crops, but I won’t; so by work 
and attention I git the best of them. 

* * * 

“Now folks wuz put on this earth 
to improve it and make it better. Our 
time is limited to do this work in and 
we can’t afford to waste our days, not 
havin’ a special program made out as 
to what we want to do. If I want to 
build a house I got to put in the 
foundations first, and build up. We 
'can’t stick those foundations together 
with glue, we got to use somethin’ 
more lastin’, and fasten them tight to 
stand the storms that’s goin’ to come 
up. Every house that is built must 
have plans, so that everything can be 
taken care of. If the plans are used 
it will be put up just as we want it. 

* * * 

“It’s just the same with life. If we 
want to have a successful life we got 
to have our plans, so we know what 
we are doin’. We got to read and 
study, to see which is the best way to 
do it, so we won’t make any mistakes. 
There is only one way to do that and 
that is to git hold of some book we 
know is right, that has stood the test, 
that won’t lead us astray. The best 


one I know of is the Bible, which tells 
us all about life buildin’. 

* * * 

“Follerin’ that book we can soon 
find out where we are wrong, and we 
can change our plans to suit before 
it is too late and all our days are not 
gone from us. Now the ones that git 
hold of that book and study it will 
soon find out where they are wrong 
and can build accordingly. We got to 
do it if we want to win out. We can’t 
depend on anyone eise, any more than 
I can pull you around by yankin’ my 
Hiram’s nose. Each one of us has 
got to decide fer himself, fer we 
know our weaknesses more than any¬ 
body else. But the hardest thing is 
to acknowledge our faults, bcause we 
want folks to believe we are better 
than we really are. 

* * * 

“These days, how fast they fly. We 
can’t hold them back and the older 
we git the faster they go. When I 
wuz a kid a week appeared to me like 
a year, but now a week is gone faster 
than I can tell it, and a year appears 
as but a little time. In fact I’m be- 
ginnin’ to think we have lived and 
gone before we realize it, and these 
little days pass by more rapidly than 
a picket fence viewed from an express 
train goin’ at 50 miles an hour. We 
see these days only once, they are 
numbered with the past, and are gone 
forever, a part of the untold ages that 
have gone before. 

* * * 

“Each day brings its reward for good 
or bad. If we ignore them and don’t 
pay any attention to them we are 
goin’ to lose out, fer one of them is 
goin’ to come along that will be our 
last on this earth, and the world will 
know us no more. When that day 
comes our life must be accounted for. 
So how important it is that we should 
use every day the right way and not 
throw it away. 

* * * 

“Every day should bring joy and 
happiness to someone, not sorrow and 
sadness. Every day should be an ad¬ 
vancement in our life, just like the 
seeds I plant in my farm. If I take 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


111 


-care of them, I will git results; if I 
don’t, I won’t. If folks take care of 
each single day, of which we have but 
few, we will reap joy and happiness; 
if we throw them away, not caring 
what we do with them, then when the 
end comes we will realize we have 
put in a misspent life. 

* * * 

“The good Lord put us here for His 
purpose. He says to me and to you, 
I put you here, gave you brains, and 
life. I made you out of nothin’ and 
if you only follow my rules and do 
what is right, spendin’ some time in 
my service, I’m goin’ to give you a 
Jife that never ends, and at the same 


time you will have a happy life here, 
if you only trust and follow Me. 

* * * 

“So when we realize this, takin’ 
Him at His word, we’re gettin’ some 
where. We got a plan to live by. We 
got an object in view. We ain’t livin’ 
haphazard. We can’t live by the year 
or even a week. We got to live each 
day, and these days make the year, 
and the years make our life. So if we 
watch the days, spendin’ them right, 
doin’ good each day, helpin’ somebody 
along that wants assistance, when our 
end comes we can feel that we have 
spent our life well, that we will be 
rewarded in the years of never ending 
joy and happiness that is sure to 
come.” 


112 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


THE RUSH FER GOLD 


Folks That Accumulate Money Have a Harder Time 

Keepin’ It Than Gittin’ It 


“I’ve been a thinkin’ about the mad 
grab fer money that’s goin’ on,” said 
Farmer John recently, “and the more 
I do the more I can’t understand folks, 
when I consider that they are fightin’ 
and strugglin’ after wealth worse 
than a starvin’ dog after a bone, that 
when it gits it there will be mighty 
poor chewin', fer all the meat has 
disappeared and the pleasure antici¬ 
pated in satisfyin’ its hunger wuz only 
in its mind and not on that bone. 
Now to my way of thinkin’ most folks 
who put in their time grabbin’ and 
strugglin’ fer money, when they git 
it won’t find so much fun in it after 
all, fer it looks to me as if they got 
to fight a great deal harder to keep 
it than they had to git it, judgin’ 
from the number of robbers floatin’ 
around and detectives chasin’ them 
up. 

* * * 

“Now when a feller gits his wad, 
his troubles start and ain’t got any 
end, and his schemin’ how to hold it 
has caused more injury to the folks 
that ain’t got it than we ever dream¬ 
ed of, somethin’ like the forbidden 
fruit that Eve wuz warned agin eatin’. 
She thought she wuz goin’ to be the 
‘real thing’ after the snake had filled 
her full of hot air and told her how 
great she would be by takin’ a bite. 
But after she lunched she found out 
she bit off more than she could chew, 
fer she wuz the ‘real thing’ when it 
come to dodgin’ of the troubles she 
brought on herself; no doubt had to 
suffer from the mumps, ear ache, tooth 
ache and probably rheumatism as time 
rolled on, it bein’ the ‘real thing’ 
in this world don’t count fer much. 


“This idee of thinkin’ because a fel¬ 
ler is rich he ain’t got any troubles 
and is so happy that if he wuz any 
more happier he would be sick, never 
did appeal to me. In fact I never 
could understand how that impression 
got passed around and folks believed 
it. Now I ain’t speakin’ from experi¬ 
ence, because I never could clip cou¬ 
pons off bonds, as I lost my shears, 
and secondly, I never had any bonds. 
But when I read in the papers about 
this blackmailin’, stealin’, beggin’, and 
letters by the million tellin’ stories 
about hard luck; other folks saying 
the rich stole everything they got, 
or they wuz too stingy to spend 
any money, because they would not 
pass it out on a shovel, don’t look to 
me like a big pic-nic, surrounded by 
so-called friends and mobs like that. 
Why I’ve seen millionaires go in to 
restaurants, and just because they 
wanted an old fashioned bowl of bread 
and milk, they wuz called so miserly 
by some of the papers that they made 
their servants who waited on their 
table whistle, so they couldn’t eat any 
of the good things they had to bring 
from the kitchen to the dinin’ room. 

* * * 

“Then we take these unfortunate 
folks. I call them unfortunate, be¬ 
cause they are up against it every 
where they go. When they go visit¬ 
in’ or travellin’ the stamp of the dol¬ 
lar gets there before they do, and 
they see nothin’ but rows of folks 
standin’ in line with their hands out, 
fairly itchin’ to be filled with money, 
and if it don’t come to light every 
blessed one of these pan-handlers be¬ 
comes an enemy. It ain’t any wonder 
that they only want to visit folks 
that’s got as much as they have, so 
they can have a little peace. Another 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


113 


bad thing is they got so much money 
that they don’t think that other folks 
are shy of it, so they forget to pay 
their bills, and this style of doin’ busi¬ 
ness keeps on pilin’ up. Then the 
first think they know somethin’ drops, 
and they git up against it fer sure. 

* * * 

“Now a thing like this happened to 
me once, and I can’t cart a wheel 
barrow lull of gold around with me. 
I went into an eatin’ house once with 
my wife, after I had been married a 
few months, and when I come to pay 
the bill I wuz about 42 cents shy. 
Why that feller called in a cop, and 
I wuz goin’ to be arrested but I got 
got my wife to pawn her weddin’ ring 
to git me loose. Now if I had looked 
into my pockets to find out whether 
I had enough change to feed us this 
wouldn’t have happened. But it wuz 
a good lesson fer me, fer every time 
I want to git anything my wife al¬ 
ways says, ‘John, have we got the 
money?’ That’s a mighty good rule 
to follow before you spend; ask your¬ 
self if you got the money. 

* * * 

“Now these millionaires ain’t got 
such a lovely time at home, when we 
come to think of it. Just size up 
their families, every one of them 
spendin’ money hand over fist to keep 
up that pace. The golden stream 
must be pourin’ in so it can keep 
runnin’ out, or somethin’s goin’ to go 
dry, just like Jared Hinkey, who got 
the idee of puttin’ up a saw mill to 
run by water power. He bought a 
pond he thought would do the trick, 
put up his mill with the machinery 
and it run fine fer about a year. But 
one day it begun to slow up and when 
he looked around he found that the 
pond wuzn’t big enough to keep his 
mill goin’. Now that wouldn’t have 
happened if he had taken the trouble 
to look up this water business, so 
the venture busted him. Some of 
these millionaires, who think that the 
stream of gold is endless, find out 
that they have run it all out and they 
are worse off than before, because 
they didn’t save the stream, not pay¬ 
in’ any attention to the supply. 


“When we look over the folks that 
live in this country we find that over 
98 per cent, of them ain’t wealthy, 
and I think it is a rattlin’ good thing 
fer the country, fer they git more 
pleasure out of anticipation than rea¬ 
lization. That’s where the pleasure 
is, lookin’ forward to the future, fer 
the instant we ain’t got anything to 
look forward to it’s just about time 
fer us to git ready to shuffle off our 
mortal coil. It’s the hope of better 
conditions that stimulates our ambi¬ 
tions, so we can reap the reward that’s 
cornin’ to us. When I start out in 
the spring and hitch up my team to 
plow my hundred acre field, it looks 
so big I think I won’t git it done, but 
after I plow, I sow my seed and take 
care of it. When harvest time comes 
I git in my crops. That’s what makes 
me happy. It wuz the anticipation 
that kept we workin’ and the crops 
provided fer the wants of my family. 
* * * 

“Now the feller that ain’t got any 
diamonds and money layin’ around 
loose in his home don’t have to lay 
awake at nights fearin’ robbers, like 
Bud Willetts, who woke up one night 
and found one of these gents a prowl¬ 
in’ around his house. Bud didn’t git 
mad, but he cornered the burglar and 
told him they would hunt together and 
if he found any jewelry and such like 
they would split fifty fifty, fer he 
would like to find some himself. So 
this friendly act of Bud’s started this 
feller on the right path, instead of 
havin’ him put in jail. 

* * * 

“It ain’t no sin to be poor and not 
have money. My meanin’ in not hav¬ 
in’ money, is not to live in poverty, 
so we can’t take care of ourselves, 
except where sickness or adversity 
comes in and we can’t control it. But 
even if it does, when we git into con¬ 
dition agin, it should help us to start 
right in agin and pull out of the hole. 
We mustn’t loose ambition and fergit 
that we are citizens of the great 
United States, where we can make 
good if we ain’t lazy, and don’t want 
to grub on some one else, fer I don’t 
care who the person is, whether they 


114 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


are millionaires or paupers, somebody 
had to sweat and work so they could 
live and the fellers that do the most 
sweatin’ is those who are shy on money 
but have the ambition to hustle and 
git along. 

* * * 

“The folks that enjoy life ain’t the 
ones who wear diamonds and expen¬ 
sive clothes; who put in their time 
joy ridin’ in automobiles and lordin’ 
it over other folks, not carin’ whose 
feelin’s they hurt. This kind of a life 
soon gits tiresome and they either 
will become worse and be a menace 
to society or else they will change 
and try and do some good fer some¬ 
one else. Their excess steam has got 
to be let loose and if it don’t they 
are crippled in mind or body, and if 
that’s the case they make life miser¬ 
able fer everybody around them. 

* * * 

“Why it seems to me that the risirf 
generation of this country ought to 
thank God they ain’t surrounded with 
luxury and wealth, fer it don’t put 
ambition into them; it don’t bring 
out their good qualities; it don’t stim¬ 
ulate them and develope their talents. 
We can look over the roll of the men 
who have made history fer this coun¬ 
try, whose names are pointed out as 
worthy examples fer us to follow. 
There is mighty few of them that 
come from wealthy families. Most of 
them wuz born in poverty and adver¬ 
sity and startin’ out in life with noth¬ 
in’ but an honest heart and willin’ 
hands. They were rewarded and at 
the same enjoyed the pleasures in an¬ 
ticipation of the good things to come. 

* * * 

“By the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread,” is the Divine com¬ 
mand, and we can’t git over it. It 
makes no difference how much we try, 
this strugglin’ and flightin’ fer gold and 
money only shoves the burden on 
someone else, so you can live. To my 
mind is a cowardly way to live, fer 
we are sacrificin’ the beauties and 
pleasures of livin’ fer our own selfish 
ends. Now I ain’t sayin’ that we must¬ 
n’t be thrifty and do all we can to git 
along, but I am sayin’ that the one 


who makes money their god, regard¬ 
less of the sorrow and trouble they 
cause, is just about the same as an¬ 
cient nations who built idols of gold 
and worshipped them, instead of the 
Great Creator of the Universe, whose 
great injunction to man is, “Thou 
shalt have no other gods before ME,” 
and if we violate that commandment 
we bring disaster upon our children, 
even to the third generation, so the 
Bible says. 

* * * 

“The happiest folks on earth today 
are the ones who live by the day and 
not by the year, fer we don’t know 
what one day will bring forth, and 
we only live by the day, fer we don’t 
know which one will be our last. I 
read of a feller once who wanted to 
be worth one hundred thousand dol¬ 
lars, so he struggled and worked, 
weighed everything that came into his 
house, only lettin’ his family have so 
much food and denied them of decent 
clothes. One day he figured he had 
reached the mark he set, and that one 
wuz his last day. When his wealth 
wuz counted he had left about 99,000, 
and when his children got hold of it 
they made things fly; two of them 
killed themselves by dissapation and 
one went insane. So what wuz gained 
by this idol of gold. 

* * * 

“The lack of money saves thousands 
of lives, where wealth ruins them. 
The boy is handicapped in life who 
has his pockets full of money and his 
stomach jammed with luxurous foods. 
He is ostracized and surpassed by the 
ones less wealthy. It is the latter 
class that has been given the oppor¬ 
tunity to become something in this 
world. It seems to me that when the 
great financial disasters occur it 
means the saving of thousands of 
young men from ruin and stimulates 
them for better things that have laid 
dormant. 

* * * 

“There ain’t no need of bein’ jealous 
because you ain’t wealthy, it’s a bless- 
in’ the average folks don’t think about. 
We ain’t been put on this earth to 
be rich. No where in the Bible is it 



FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


115 


promised. The one who has money 
and wants more is poorer than the 
one who works hard, pays his debts, 
and tries to do right, and raises his 
family so that they will be an honor 
to him and the good Lord who put 
bim here. 

* * + 

“We will have the wealthy and the 
poor until the great change comes. So 
if we should be selected to have a 
bugh bank account, it is up to us to 
give a strict account of that steward¬ 


ship and not let it ruin ourselves and 
family and handicap the younger gen¬ 
eration in the life they have to live. 
‘By the sweat of thy face’ should 
never be forgotten. Idols of gold 
should be banished from our minds, 
and when the end comes and we de¬ 
part from this life, there is no rich 
nor poor; we are all on the same 
level, and what we have accumulated 
in this world still remains here, and 
the good we have done is the true 
legacy to those who remain.” 


116 FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


BEIN' A SPORT 


Many Folks Are Still Payin' the Bill of Bein' Sports When 

They Wuz Young 


“There is nothin’ in this bein’ a 
sport business that we hear our young 
folks braggin’ about now days,” said 
Farmer John, one day, “and when our 
youngsters begin to call themselves 
a sport, this is only another way of 
tryin’ to convince themselves that 
they are smarter than anybody else 

and they can’t be fooled. But when 
they git up in years and look back 
or they git on the skids and begin to 
shoot down hill, they mighty soon re¬ 
alize that this bein’ a sport business 
is all bunk, for they can’t win out 
in the battle of life, any more than a 
runner can win a hundred yard dash 
with a ten pound weight tied to each 
foot. 

* * 

“I wuz readin’ in the paper the other 
day about a young feller that had a 
gool father, who dene all he could 
to make that boy happy, but that kid 
wanted to be a sport. So to git money, 
to increase his reputation as a sport, 
he forged his father’s name to checks 
lots of times before he wuz found out. 
That didn’t happen until the father 
wanted some money to pay his bills 
and the checks come back marked, 
“no funds.” So he wuz arrested. Then 
the lad confessed that he done it, be¬ 
cause he wanted to be a sport and 
stand big with other “sports” that 
wuz robbin’ him right and left. That 
wuz only one case of bein’ a sport. 
He ruined his parents and himself to, 
just because he thought it wuz smart; 
but he didn’t think someone had to 
pay the bill. 

* * * 

“Say, when I git some mules or 
horses that want to git tunny and kick 
over the traces, which is just like be¬ 
in’ a sport, accordin’ to their way of 


thinkin’, I can only do one thing to 
make them change their opinions, fer 
who wants any animal around whose 
feet are flyin’ up in the air, bustin’ 
shafts of wagons and doin’ other dam¬ 
age when we don’t expect it, and car- 
ryin’ on, which no self respectin’ ani¬ 
mal will do, and thinkin’ they can do 
as they please. So I have to git 
off the right path, and not mind orders. 
It often takes me a couple of weeks 
before they git the lesson pounded 

into them. 

* * * 

“This bein’ a sport is a disease that’s 
epidemic when folks are young. And 
they git it before the older folks 

know it. So if we would vaccinate 
them by showip’ them what bein’ a. 
sport leads to, just like we do so 

folks won’t git the smallpox, or take 
them in hand, just like I do my farm 
animals and pound the vaccination 
into them, they would be better off 
when they git older. Now when my 
hired man Hiram come to live with 
me he wuz young and frisky, and he 
kept savin’ he wanted to be a sport 
and he wuz goin’ to git in the swim 
and be a fish in the big puddle. Why 
he got so he wouldn’t git up, and 
considered himself too smart to work. 
All he wanted wuz his wages, so he 
could be a sport, blow them in and. 
git in the swim. So I stood it just 
as long as I could. One mornin’ when 
he wuz snoozin’ sound, I git a bucket 
of water and souses him all over,, 
right on top of him, when he wuz in 
bed and said ‘If you want to be in 
the swim, here’s your chance.’ 

* * * 

“Hiram never said anything more 
about bein’ in the swim after that, fer 
that lesson wuz enough and it check¬ 
ed the disease right off. I often 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 117 


thought that a bucket of water, ap¬ 
plied just like I did to Hiram, will 
cure many of these young night owls, 
that want to sleep all day and be a 
sport at night, who make someone 
else keep them in sportin’ ammunition 
in the shape of money. Per every 
feller that wants to be a sport has 
got to have money and the easier 
they git it the better sport they are. 
This bein’ a sport is mighty pleasant 
when we are young and ain’t got any 
responsibilities, just floatin’ around 
like a cloud pushed every way by 
the wind, with no object in life, ex¬ 
cept draw your breath or sailin’ down 
the stream of life in the current of 
time, but the older they grow the 
faster the current is, and in many 
cases it is too late to pull back or 
change your tack. 

* * * 

“Some folks call it ‘Sowin’ wild 
oats’. Personally I don’t care what 
it'is called, fer what we sow we got 
to reap; we can’t dodge it. Sowin’ 
wild oats is a mighty easy job, and 
we can jam those seeds in any old 
way, just like bein’ a sport, but the 
crops has got to come up, its ours, 
and if those kind of oats is mixed up 
with goods seeds, our harvest ain’t 
worth much at that, fer the mixture of 
the good and the bad goes against 
us when age comes on us. 

* * * 

“I heard folks say ‘It pays to sow 
your wild oats when we are young, 

fer then we can settle down when we 
are older.’ All I got to say is that 
most folks are still payin’ the bill of 
sowin’ wild oats when they wuz young, 
just by bein’ a sport, and if we would 
take the trouble of askin’ men their 
experience about it they will all tell 
you the same thing. I say there is 
nothin’ in it, only sorrow and regret. 
Why if we look into the jails and 
penetentiaries we will find them full 
of ‘old sports,’ fer that is generally 
where they wind up, every one of 
them luggin’ around their crop of wild 
oats, which they can’t git rid of; 
stiekin’ to them tighter than the skin 
on the back of their neck. Just talk 


to them fellers and they will tell you 
about bein’ a sport. 

* * * 

“I knew a bunch of young fellers 
years ago that thought they were 
sports. Every Saturday night they 
drunk whiskey and played poker until 
it wuz time fer other folks to go to 
church. After they done this fer a 
year or so their money run short. They 
knew of an old woman who had money 
and they thought they would go and 
‘borrow’ it. They did, and in the row 
that followed the woman wuz killed. 
Two of them spent the rest of their 
lives in jail and the others got twenty 
years. They wuz ‘sports’ and would 
listen to nobody, fer they wuz too 
wise. 

* * * 

“I ain’t sayin’ that every would-be 
sport is goin’ to kill somebody and 
git a life sentence. But I do say 
these would-be sports kill all their 
chances of gittin’ along in life and 
has a bearin’ on the life of someone 
else fer success or failure, happiness 
or sorrow. Its the crop we sow and 
we got to reap it. Whenever I see 
young fellers invitin’ others to be a 
‘sport,’ which generally means to do 
somethin’ wrong, it’s the tip to git 
away . and change your society, fer 
that organization is headed the wronf 
way. It spells disaster if you con¬ 
tinue with them. If you young fellers 
don’t believe this, just ask some old 
gray-headed fan and listen to him. He 
can tell you stories that you can’t find 
in any novel, fer they don’t print 
stories of shipwrecked lives. If they 
did, a bunch of our so-called business 
men would bust up. 

* * * 

“Now some folks might git the idee 
that I don’t believe in folks havin’ a 
good time nor no pleasure. We got 
to have it or we can’t stand the pace. 
But havin’ a good time don’t mean 
that we should sneak away to some 
place where we ain’t known and do 
things that we would be ashamed to 
have our family and friends know 
about. Fer if we do that, it’s the dis¬ 
ease breakin’ out that is liable to 
ruin us. I heard of a feller that be- 


118 


PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


longed to church, had a fine wife and 
family, and he used to go away from 
home every once in a while. He cov¬ 
ered up what he done when makin’ 
these visits fer several years, hut at 
last he wuz found out. The disgrace 
broke his wife’s heart and his family 
wuz broken up. He found out this 
sportin’ life didn’t pay fer he had to 
pay the bill. 

* * * 

“Another case, a man came to a 
city to live. He worked hard and 
honest and folks thought a lot of him. 
He wuz elected to office. Then along 
come a feller that knew him years be¬ 
fore and spread the story how this 
man had served a term in jail. Then 
all the folks that claimed he wuz so 
good, talked about him and jeered, 
until he wuz almost down and out, 
but his wife stuck to him. He acknow¬ 
ledged he wuz in jail once, but he 
went right when he got out. Some 
kind friends, that had faith in him, 
got him work and he continued to do 
good. So you see although this man 
repented of his bad actions he had 
to still suffer fer them, he couldn’t 
dodge them. 

* * * 

“When it comes to bein’ a sport 
and we git mixed up in questionable 
things it ain’t forgotten. Somebody 
knows about it and they will tell 
others, fer some folks take a delight 
in repeatin’ evil tales about others, 
and it takes years to live it down. 
If the young folks, who aspire to be 
sports, could only realize this they 
would be better off. I can tell you of 
dozens of stories like this, how ac¬ 
tions done in youth has follered men 
to their graves, fer the world has a 
mighty good memory when it comes 
to the bad actions committed by these 
‘sports’ while the good ones are for¬ 
gotten. 

* * * 

“I never heard of these would-be 
‘sports’ invitin’ folks to go to church 
or read good books or talk about the 
honest upright men that have made 
their mark in the world. ‘Sports don’t 
mention that. But let some gambler 
make big winnin’ on horses or cards 
or fleece someone out of money by 


some mean trick, they can let loose- 
a stream of oratory that would rival 
Bill Bryan about how clever those 
‘sports’ wuz and how they could im¬ 
prove on their methods in that kind 
of work. It pays to keep away from 
the ones whose heroes are the stars 
in questionable society, who brag 
about how much money they made in 
gamblin’ or skinin’ someone out of 
their money, takin’ advantage of hon¬ 
esty and then touch you fer a loan, 
tellin’ you how clever you are. If 
you would use your brains you would 
know they were lies, fer if they had 
made so much money they wouldn’t 
want to borrow, and next, right down* 
in your heart, you knew you wuzn’t 
smart at all, fer if you wuz, you would 
say ‘goodnight mighty quick. 

* * * 

“The way to find out these ‘sports' 
is to listen to them gab, fer you can’t 
beat a feller at his own game, lie’s 
studied it and got the points down 
fine. It may be that he wants you 
to do things you shouldn’t, or go some¬ 
where you knew wuzn’t right. If he 
blows about how smart he is, that’s 
your cue to find out the reason, and 
there is one. It may be to only git 
you tied up so that he can cover tip 
his tricks and make a getaway, and 
you got to suffer. So if you can only 
git it into your head that you don’t 
know nothin’, and he knows it all, you 
don’t want to travel in that class; fer 
they are too clever fer you. Really 
clever men don’t have to preach about 
it, fer you can soon find it our your¬ 
self by the way they act and not by 
a gush of hot air. 

* * * 

“Now the Bible says, ‘If we want to 
do right we got to go straight,’ and 
that don’t mean we can trot around 
in circles and then have the nerve to 
call it goin’ straight. So when you 
come in contact with a ‘sport’, just 
watch how straight he’s goin’. If you 
jest keep your ears open and your 
eyes glued on him, I’ll bet you will 
soon discover he’s gyratin’ around 
faster than a wheel can spin. Why 
even their talk goes in curves, fer 
if you let them do it all you will soon 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


119 


find out that their string or oratory- 
will come back at them just like a 
boomerang and give them a crack that 
will keep them busy inventin’ lies to 
try and square matters so you won’t 
git too inquisitive. 

* * * 

i 

“We’re travelin’ in a fast age and 
the pace that is set fer our young 
folks is bewilderin’. It’s enough to 
make anybody dizzy, and we got to 
keep straight so we won’t topple over. 
If the older folks have got this fever, 
just think what is the temperature 
of the younger generation, with autos, 


motion pictures, dances and all that 
to take them away from the real con¬ 
dition of life. Why if we let them 
alone to do as they want without a 
restrainin’ hand, they will be in an 
awful fix when they grow up. So we 
mustn’t fergit our duty. We must set 
the example and show them that the 
right way to live is by the rules set 
down in the Bible, fer it’s our own 
salvation. Teach them that the path¬ 
way of life is beset with traps of all 
kinds to land the unwary. To make a 
success of life is to study and work, 
so that they can cope with the con¬ 
ditions that will arise.” 


120 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


PAYIN’ THE BILL 


Jails, Penetentiaries and Insane Asylums Are Full of Folks 

“Payin’ the Bill” 


“One day, when I was busily en¬ 
gaged in sending out my monthly 
statements, Farmer John came into 
my office and after the usual saluta¬ 
tions he intently watched me for some¬ 
time and at last he asked me, “What 
is the most important thing in your 
business.” 

“Why paying the bills, of course. 
If people did not pay their bills no one 
could continue in business very long,” 
I answered. 

“You’re about right in that,” was 
the reply, “we all got to pay our bills 
and we can’t git out of it.” 

“I have to disagree with you,” I 
replied. “I have a regular stack of 
unpaid bills that have simply been ig¬ 
nored and it looks as if I can’t collect 
one cent. It’s pretty hard on us busi¬ 
ness men to put our money into stock, 
selling it under the regular routine of 
business, then have irresponsible pur¬ 
chasers take advantage of every con¬ 
dition they possibly can and in the 
end cheat us out of everything. It is 
this kind of work that adds to the 
costs of commodities, that honest buy¬ 
ers must pay for, to overcome this un¬ 
necessary loss that we are compelled 
to undergo.” 

“You may think these tricksters 
won’t have to pay,” Farmer John said, 
“but they will. You may not get the 
money or the value of it back but 
there’s goin’ to come a time when all 
this crooked work has got to be squar¬ 
ed up, just like the feller that played 
a so-called joke on an elephant that 
wuz in a circus. He wuz strollin’ along 
where the animals wuz and come to 
this elephant. As it wuz tame, it put 
out its trunk, thinkin’ it wuz goin’ to 


git petted or git some peanuts. So 
this gent, when the trunk wuz near 
him, took his cigar and shoved it agin 
the trunk, which made the animal roar 
with pain, and if it hadn’t been 
chained it would have killed him be¬ 
fore he ran away. Several years 
after he visited a circus agin, fergit- 
tin’ how he treated that elephant, but 
it remembered that dirty trick and 
just as soon as it caught sight of this 
man it reached out his trunk, grabbed 
him, slammed him to the ground, put 
its foot on him and pulled him to 
pieces. Of course it killed him, so you 
see that feller paid the bill fer doin’ 
mean things.” 

* * * 

“Torturing animals that remember 
cruel things and who are not available 
to the law, is another story besides 
jumping your honest bills,” I said, “so 
I don’t quite get your inference as to 
how it compares with being honest 
and every person will be forced to 
pay their bills.” 

“Well, I’ll try to explain my posi¬ 
tion on these things. I told you this 
story to give you another phase of it, 
so we’ll get right into the real ques¬ 
tion that we can’t dodge bills. It makes 
no difference how we try, every one 
of them has to be paid, fer that is 
the law laid down by the good Lord 
and I never saw anyone of them that 
wuz broke that didn’t have to be 
squared up either in this life or the 
future. Now I ain’t goin’ to git in a 
big argument about theology with you, 
fer I ain’t got the education and can 
only give you my way of thinkin’, tak- 
in’ the Bible fer my authority and 
what we see while we’re livin’ on this 
earth, fer we can see it on every side 
of us, by just remembering that all of 
us are busy ‘payin’ bills.’ 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


121 


“Fer instance, I wuz a poundin’ out 
some iron that I got hot in a fire one 
day and after I got through I laid it 
down to cool off. To warn folks it 
wuz hot I marked it with chalk and 
left it. So along comes my hired man, 
Hiram, who saw what I wrote and, 
just to see whether I told the truth, 
he tries to pick it up. About that 
time. I heard him holler and usin’ lan¬ 
guage that’s aginst the rules of the 
church and dancin’ like a june bug. 
I asked him what wuz wrong. Then 
he told me he picked up that hot 
iron and he got burnt. ‘Didn’t you 
read my warnin’?’ I asked him. ‘Cer¬ 
tainly/ he said, ‘but I wanted to see 
if it w r uz really hot.’ ‘I guess you 
found out, all right,’ I replied. I had 
to send fer a doctor to fix him up. 
Now there w t uz a case of ’payin’ the 
bill.’ Hiram w t uz warned about that 
iron, but in spite of that he couldn’t 
keep his paws off it and he knows 
mighty well that foolin’ with hot iron 
without tongs is goin’ to do some dam¬ 
age. 

* * * 

“All through the Bible we git the 
warnin’ ‘Don’t fool with fire.’ Even 
the kids know this almost as soon as 
they are able to toddle but the trou¬ 
ble is that we are so dumb we don’t 
pay attention about this fire and so 
we’re continually gittin’ burnt. And 
then we holler and yell and blame 
it on everybody except ourselves and 
then we got to ‘pay the bill.’ Now 
those fellers that think that they won’t 
pay what they owe, but can afford 
to and don’t make any effort to square 
things up, are foolin’ with hot iron. 
They’re goin’ to git burnt sure, and 
they got to suffer pain just the same 
as Hiram. Now ‘pay n’ the bill’ don’t 
mean squarin’ up with money, fer as 
I’ve said before we can be honest in 
money affairs but be crookeder than 
a dog’s hind leg in other things and 
that’s what I want to bring out, fer 
this cheatin’ business is only one of 
them. 

* * * 

“It ain’t because folks are not 
warned about ‘payin’ bills,’ fer they 
are, but just like Pliram they won’t 
Relieve it. Take the story of ‘Snugs” 


Jenkins. He wuz smart and intelli¬ 
gent and married a fine girl. In th« 
course of time they had several chil¬ 
dren but “Snugs” got mixed up with 
a fast crowd, stayed away from home, 
drank nearly all his money up and after 
awhile put his family in want. When 
his money got shy he took to stealin’. 
At last he wuz caught and sent to 
jail. His family got scattered and be¬ 
cause his wife couldn’t stand the 
strain she died. When “Snugs” got 
loose he had no home, his family was 
gone and no one had any use fer him. 
He had to pay the bill in the end; he 
monkeyed with the fire and got burnt. 
* * * 

“Another case of a young feller who 
went to a certain church regular and 
wuz liked by everybody. But this 
church to raise money got to giving 
card parties with prizes to the win¬ 
ners and Ned, fer that wuz his first 
name, won most of them by his skill. 
He got to be the talk of the town and 
he wuz told that because he wuz so 
lucky he ought to play cards regular 
and he did. He got to be a regular 
gambler, stopped goin’ to church, fer 
he got the idee that he wuz too smart 
to work as there wuz no use of his 
workin’ all day fer $5.00 when could 
raake it in a couple of minutes gam¬ 
blin’. The outcome of it wuz ha. wuz 
arrested fer it and became an out¬ 
cast and honest folks wouldn’t have 
anything to do with him. He had to 
‘pay the bill’ because he got to cheat¬ 
in’, which is no more than stealin’ 
and his own folks disowned him. That 
very church that started him on the 
wrong road, broke up when his story 
wuz told, fer they were educatin’ the 
young folks to git burnt instead of 
keepin’ them away from the fire. . 

* * * 

“If folks of today could only remem¬ 
ber that the ‘sins of the father will be 
visited on the children even unto the 
third generation,’ probably they would 
be more careful, fer there are millions 
of folks that has to pay the bills of 
their parents. Many of these bills are 
contracted by those just startin’ out 
in life, gamblin’, dripkin’, licentious- 
nes, stealin, and lyin’ and in fact 


222 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


everything we got in the ten command¬ 
ments, when broken, if we don’t ‘pay 
the bill’ in this life our children must, 
fer the influence we leave behind us 
when we pass away, they have to 
bear. I knew of a good man, whose 
lather wuz a thief and had spent many 
years in jail fer it, wuz taunted about 
it until he died. It wuz never for¬ 
gotten. A fine legacy he wuz left to 
fight out. The father had to pay the 
bill and the son had to keep up the 
payments. 

* * * 

“Look about us and notice all the 
crippled and deformed children. If 
we would just take the trouble to find 
out about them we would be ashamed 
that we live in what we call a Christian 
country. And what is the cause of it? 
Nothin’ less than the result of im¬ 
morality and disease, and these un- 
lortunate innocent children must ‘pay 
the bill’ for the sins of the father, 
until they are through with this life. 
If w'e investigate the history of many 
of poverty-stricken homes and trace 
the reason, we would soon find out 
that they were ‘payin’ the bill’ of the 
crimes committed against humanity, 
of which we are warned against in 
the Bible. Fer if we fool with the 
fire we will git burnt and these very 
things are only a consumin’ fire, that 
ain’t put out very easy. 

* * * 

“Every jail, penitentiary and insane 
asylum is filled with folks that are 
‘payin’ bills’ and if we all had our just 
dues I’m a thinkin’ we’d have more 
of them than we would have homes, 
fer there are more folks ‘payin’ bills’ 
out of them than are in them. I know 
you won’t agree with me when I say 
this but suppose you look around and 
just notice things. Whenever a fel¬ 
ler comes to you with a hard luck 
story and you can git him to talk, you 
will very soon find out that the cause 
of his misery is ‘payin’ bills’ and that 
busted him. Now I ain’t sayin’ that 
every case we find is caused by ‘bills’ 
contracted by those who ask you fer 
help, because thy ain’t, fer some of 
them are left to us and we got to 
square things and we don’t know how 


to do it, but we’d soon find out if we 
studied the Bible a little more. Take 
all the accidents that happen and folks 
git hurt, they got to ‘pay the bill’ fer 
somebody’s carelessness. We can sue 
and git damages in money, but that 
don’t pay us fer the pain, agony and 
loss of limbs, but it’s the only way we 
got. God Almighty don’t ask us to 
‘pay our bills’ to Him in money. It 
can’t be done. He ain’t got any more 
use fer our money to square things 
than we have fer mud on the street. 
He wants us to act right, so He can 
give us that never endin’ life that’s 
to come after we’re through with this 
one. 

* * * 

“Honest folks hate to be in debt. 

I know I do, fer I want to be square 
with everybody, includin’ our good 
Lord, but to do that we can’t be like 
Mary Ann Boggins, dabblin’ into every¬ 
thing she sees and when it comes to 
her debts she ought to pay, she’s 
broke. And that’s just about the way 
we live, dabblin’ in things we should¬ 
n’t. The upright parent wants the chil¬ 
dren to do right and show them how 
to keep out of debt. This can only 
be done by givin’ the right instruc¬ 
tion when they are young and besides 
this we got to do it ourselves and 
show them by example. It’s as easy 
to git in debt as it is to take a tum¬ 
ble on a skatin’ pond. This thing of 
leavin’ our debts to be paid by some 
one else ain’t quite square, so start 
the young folks right, show them that 
all these things that look so pleasant 
and nice where they lead to and they 
won’t have so many ‘bills to pay.’ 

* * * 

‘Think this over a little. Remember 
‘WE GOT TO PAY THE BILL.’ Find 
out why other folks are ‘payin’ bills,’ 
so you can avoid them. Get at the 
bottom of it and show the younger 
generation, by practical examples, the 
results of this kind of gittin’ in debt, 
fer the Bible tells us if we don’t 
square up, ‘I will repay, saith the 
Lord.’ So if anybody owes us, then 
the good Lord will take a hand in it. 
That same book tells us ‘The way of 
the transgressor is hard’ and takup 
this as true, we know from experience,. 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


123: 


they ain't got any snap, fer you can 
see it around you every day and what 
makes it so is they are ‘payin’ bills' 
and it’s a mighty hard job payin’ bills 
to God Almighty, who demands just 
payment. So when this so-called bad 
luck strikes you durin’ your life, just 
think things over and you will realize 
you are payin’ the bill of bad actions. 
* * * 

, “Take these fellers that are loafin’ 
and too lazy to work when they are 
young and strong. They think they 
are havin’ a royal good time, just 
takin’ things easy, not botherin’ any¬ 
thing about the future, but wonderin’ 
how they will git their cigarette 
money. They don’t realize that they 
got to ‘pay the bill’ fer loafin’. It 
may not be fer some years, but when 
they git that bill shoved at them and 
they think of that lost time, they will 
be payin’ it off until the end. The 
fellers that claim they ‘live by their 
wits,’ which ain’t sayin’ very much 
about the quality of them, by not act¬ 


in’ straight, have got to ‘pay the biir_ 
There ain’t no class, no condition that 
can escape, fer there is no use tryin* 
to beat the devil at his own game, fer 
he demands his rake off, which is sor¬ 
row, anguish and loss of life everlast¬ 
ing If we think we can do it and foof 
with the devil, we got to ‘pay the bill/ 
* * * 

“So let us keep out of this debt as 
much as possible. We can do it if we 
follow the Bible and it’s the only way. 
If we do, we are promised another 
great thing that no millionaire or 
money can buy and that is ‘Never 
have I seen the righteous forsaken,, 
nor his seed beggin’ bread.’ To my 
mind this the greatest thing we can. 
leave to our posterity, that by our 
right kind of livin’ the good Lord will 
take care of those whom we leave be¬ 
hind us and they won’t have a lot of 
our debts to pay when they tackle the 
journey of life by simply playin’ the 
game square and be honest to man andf 
our great Creator.’’ 


124 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


THE RED LIGHTS OF LIFE 


If You Want to Know How Many Red Lights We Are 
Surrounded With Just Try to Count Them 


“I wuz a drivin’ home from market 
■one day,” said Farmer John to me at 
one of his visits to my office, “and 
I had to cross a railroad. When I 
got near it, out rushed a feller who 
begun to swing a red light. I could 
see it plain, so I hauled up short. But 
right back of me come Bud Martin, 
a drivin’ like a regular Jehu, swift and 

furious, payin’ no attention to the sig¬ 
nal. Along come the train, and Bud 
and his rig got an awful wollop and 
took a sail up in the air. Then he 
come down, but not as good a shape 
as when he went up. He could talk 
a little when we picked him up and 
he wuz asked why he didn’t stop. He 
fold us he thought he’d take a chance, 
but he lost out. 

* * * 

“That was very foolish on the part 
of your friend Bud,” I remarked, “par¬ 
ticularly when the flagman waved him 
to stop.” 

“That’s what all of us thought that 
saw the whole thing,” said Farmer 
John, “but Bud always had the idee 
that he wuz swift and could git by 
anything, but fer once he found out 
he wuzn’t as fast as he thought he 
wuz, consequently he had some time 
fer reflection cornin’ to him when he 
wuz lyin’ in the hospital, gittin’ well, 
figurin’ out that there is some things 
•quicker than he wuz and it don’t pay 
to pass red lights, which give us 
warnin’ that we got somethin’ to dodge 
and it’s time to find out what’s wrong. 

* * * 

“But he wuzn’t any worse than 
“Fatty” Dollops. He wuz nick-named 
“Fatty” because he wuz fat, pure 
downright hog fat. He looked like a 
balloon perched on two tooth picks, 


but in spite of his fat I always thought 
he wuz lean in brains. He got the 
idee he wuz as graceful as a fawn and 
could run like a deer, he wuz so 
swift, because he won a couple of 
medals beatin’ some kids in a foot 
race. But one day “Fatty” wanted to 
take a short cut home which took 
him across a field where a mean look¬ 
in’ bull wuz feedin’. We all told him 
he’d better not take' a chance, but 
go round. But his lean brains got 
a workin’ and argued the other way, 
sayin’ he wuz faster than any bull 
that ever trotted on four legs. So he 
climbed the fence and started to cross. 
When he got about half way over 
the bull got sight of him and started 
to come his way. “Fatty” put cn his 
lightnin’ speed, but as fast as his 
accelerator wuz workin’, the bull’s 
had more power. So when “Fatty” 
got about twenty feet from the fence 
mister bull reached him. “Fatty” 
made a beautiful circle over the fence 
and landed with a squash on the other 
side. We all thought he would be 
flatter than a boardin’ house pie, but 
he wuz so fat he only bounced. So 
after he stopped bouncin’, he argued 
it wuz the first race he ever lost and 
he’d never lose another, fer he wuz 
out of the racin’ game. 

* * * 

“Now these ain’t the only cases we 
heard of that ignored warnin’s, think- 
in’ that nothin’ could beat them. That’s 
the trouble with a great many folks 
in this world, because they think they 
are too swift to be caught, but all at 
once they git tied up in a knot that 
it takes days and sometimes years to 
untie. Why, this world is full of red 
lights, givin’ us warnin’s that we 
should pay attention to and if they 
could be lined up we would have a 






FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


125 - 


procession that would reach from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific that would beat 
any torch light parade you ever heard 
of.” 

* * * 

“I can’t believe that there are so 
many red lights to guide us along the 
pathway of life,” I remarked, “but if 
you see them I would like to know 
how you reach that conclusion, for 

many of us would like to know how to 
be warned.” 

“If you would study them, you can 
see them and our young folks are 

hankerin’ after them -but us older 

folks, goin’ through life, won’t say any¬ 
thing about them because we might 
have a red light hooked onto us to 
show how we went wrong, fer it hurts 
our dignity to admit we wuz first class 
fools once, fer we pride ourselves on 
our wisdom and everybody does wrong 
except us. Say don’t we like to throw 
bouquets at ourselves just like “Fatty” 
Dollops, and when it comes to the test 
we got to admit we ain’t so cute as 
we thought, fer the cornin’ generation 
looks on us as back numbers, just 
like an ancient newspaper, but they 
fergit there’s lots of information to be 
picked up in them. 

* * * 

“It seems to me that our govern¬ 
ment is more kindly disposed toward 
our sailors than we are to the young¬ 
sters, fer the government will build 
lighthouses, make charts and maps to 
guide them over the oceans, lakes and 
rivers that’s dangerous, but us older 
folks that have been battlin’ on the 
ocean of life keep to ourselves most 
of the hidden rocks of life that ship¬ 
wreck lives, instead of pointin’ out 
these red light danger signals which 
surround us on every hand. If you’ll 
git out a pencil and book and just 
mark down fer one day all these red 
lights that’s flashin’ about, you’ll git 
dizzy countin’ them. 

, * * * 

“Walk along the street, just make 
a mark fer every one you heai cui sin 
and swearin’, in your mind put a red 
light on them, fer it shows that some¬ 
thin’ is wrong. It may be caused by 
.rage, enmity, or hatred, but most 


times is nothin’ except blashphemy,. 
takin’ the name of the Lord in vain 
and askin’ Him to put His curse on 
somebody or some thing. Usin’ foul 
language or tellin’ vile stories don’t 

git anybody anywhere, except land' 

you in a place where the good Lord 
wants to keep you from. It don’t make- 
folks think better of you, so if it 

can’t do you good it will do you bad,, 
it’s one thing or the other; so put 
down your mark. 

* * * 

“We hear men crow about how they 
got hold of some booze and how they- 
slopped over it until the few brains, 
they got begins to wiggle and then 
imagine they are the smartest thing 
that ever happened and the rest of the 
world are boobs, or else everybody is 
layin’ fer them to drag them down,, 
knowin’ full well it’s against the law. 
It’s about time we ought to hang a. 
red light on them, fer anybody with 
the sense of a bawlin’ calf knows that 
this class of men are flirtin’ with the 
undertaker and at the same time are 
pourin’ down their necks stuff that 
would eat out the bottom of a cast 
iron pot, poisonin’ their bodies, killin’ 
every chance they got in life. Now 
we can put another mark down in our 
book. 

* * * 

“Then we got the class of fellers 
that like to brag how they got the 

best of somebody else, by cheatin’ and 
lyin’ or doin’ dirty tricks, thinkin* it 
wuz smart, just like a feller who stole 
a blind man’s pie, when he knew the 
blind feller couldn’t see him, and then 
laughed because he thought it wuz 
funny, And some of these kind of folks, 
do worse than that, so that decent 
men felt like tar and featherin’ them, 
and another kind that plans and 
schemes to skin others fer their 
money. We can use a bunch of red’ 
lights on them, fer there are lots of 
them. So we mark down some more 
lines in our book, fer we are taught 
that we should act right, so that we 
can enjoy life and not run around 
some corner if we see. our victims-- 
cornin’ our way. 


326 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


“Wte see lots of fellers on the 
streets that won’t work, all togged up, 
but making some one else support 
them. It may be their parents or 
•others in the family, or try to make 
their boardin’ house keepers do it, 
"by never payin’ anything. They ought 
to be tagged with red lamps, fer 
there’s a crowd of them. Then size 
up the bunch that’s always borrowin’ 
money, always sayin’ about the wad 
they’re goin’ to git tomorrow, which 
«ever comes and they got a big stunt 
that they’re goin’ to pull off that will 
bring them lots of coin, generally 
windin’ up by tellin’ you how much 
money they made in the past. Say, 
when you meet a bunch like this, it’s 
your time to play checkers and it’s 
your move and do it quick, fer if they 
wuzn’t lyin’ they were fools pure and 
simple. As we can’t afford to asso¬ 
ciate with liars or fools we’d better 
tag them with our red lamps and put 
some more marks in our book. 

* * * 

“We often read about folks bein’ ar¬ 
rested fer stealin’, but to tell the truth 
I think about ninety per cent, of them 
escape the law, when we consider the 
-amount of stuff we are told wuz stole. 
If all these folks wuz pinched the jails 
wouldn’t be big enough to hold them 
and if everyone of them had red lights 
on them the price of red globes would 
go up, fer there would be a big short¬ 
age. But as they are hard to catch, 
we can’t label them, but the good Lord 
can but we can put marks in our book 
and it gives us a tip to git away from 
them, fer associatin’ with them will 
wreck us sure. 

* * * 

“Then take the folks that’s always 
tellin’ lies, they know in their own 
hearts they’re goin’ to git caught at 
it some time. So we got more red 
lights to dodge and more marks fer 
our book. We see poor, hungry little 
children, all ragged and dirty, so just 
find out the cause. A visit to their 
homes will tell the story, fer if their 
parents wuzn’t signals fer us to avoid 
the kids wouldn’t be dirty, even if 
their clothes wuzn't good. Learn the 
whys about the trouble and in most 


cases you will have to put up the re.d 
light, fer bad deeds done the trick. 
More marks to put down. A visit to 
the slums of any city will keep you 
busy fillin’ up your book with marks. 

* * * 

“Just read about the gamblin’ 
houses gittin’ raided and the number 
of folks that frequent them. Some of 
these folks that patronize them are 
supposed to be respectable and do 
these things on the quiet and like oth¬ 
ers, who travel in Christian circles, 
think that they always can dodge the 
results, just like the feller crossin’ 
the railroad. They ain’t as smart as 
they figured on. Now if they all wuz 
labelled with a red light I’d hate to 
drive a bunch of bulls on the street 
where they wuz, fer somebody would 
git hurt. So when you talk with fel¬ 
lers that tell you how clever they are 
at gamblin’, git out your pencil and 
git busy markin’ in your book. 

* * * 

“Take into consideration the dope 
addicts, bootleggers, home breakers 
and others like them. Just see what a 
crowd we would have. Then add to 
this the products of the divorce courts, 
character defamers and the inmates 
of our jails; give our insane asylums 
the once over and you can get a big 
bunch out of them. I don’t say all who 
are there, but many of them. Just 
size up this great array of folks and 
I’m thinkin’ that no one person could 
make enough marks in one day in the 
book, even if we kept both hands 
busy. Suppose we could put red lights 
on them, I think we’d have a red 
glare nearby as big as that made by 
the fire that consumed Sodom and 
Gomorrah in ancient days, and it’s a 
wonder to me that the good Lord 
stands fer it, considering the number 
of churches, preachers and Bibles we 
got and then we wonder what’s the 
matter with our young folks that’s 
growin’ up and will soon take our 
places. 

* * * 

“Somethin’s wrong and what is it? 
Here we brag about livin’ in a Chris¬ 
tian country. Nearly every one in it 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


swears that he believes in the Bible. 
We insist that all our officials take 


their oath of office on that book. We 
talk about it and argue over it, when 
we know right down in our hearts 
that half of the folks that live here 
don’t read on <m average one verse 
in it a month. This country is over¬ 
loaded with secret societies and nearly 
■every one of them has the Bible dis¬ 
played in the center of the room. If 
they had to open their lodge with 
prayer they would almost faint if 
somebody hadn’t written it. out fer 
them in the ritual and they had to 
pray without it. So I’ve concluded 
that the Bible is just about as much 
a secret to them as if it wuz written 
in the Choctaw language. 

* * * 

“The feller that ignores the white 
haired men and women and don’t pay 
attention to what they have to say 
how to avoid the pitfalls of life and 
in my experience they all want to give 
those that are younger some good 
honest advice, is just as careless as 
“Bud” Martin or “Fatty” Dollops, fer 
if we wuz goin’ on a long trip we 
would hunt up someone who had made 
it and git pointers as to what to ex¬ 
pect, but white-topped folks are set 
down as old fogies and don’t know 
nothin’. So most of us generally git 
the invitation to ‘shut up’, and bein’ 
oblingin’, we generally do, fer there 
is no use talkin’ to a stone that won’t 
listen, fer the young folks think that 
the old folks are fools and the old 
folks know that most of the young 
folks ARE, and that let’s us out. 

* * * 

“Now sizin’ up this situation we got 
this, the world is full of folks, all 
kinds of them, the average youngster 
looks forward to life to make a suc¬ 
cess, they can never imagine they are 
goin’ to be ‘horrible examples’ when 


they git up in years, and bein’ skittish, 
just like young colts, they go ahead 
and do as they please. We got all 
kinds of schools and colleges and we 
turn out half educated scholars, just 
because we ain’t got any course in 
the list to teach them about the red 
lights I talk about. We ain’t pointin’ 
out to them the signrls they should 
look out fer, and show them how to 
dodge them, fer when I git holt of a 
young colt I start to teach it some 
‘common horse sense’ and if we git 
somethin’ goin’ like that we’ll be git- 
tin’ some where and I think it worth 
tryin’ out. 

* * * 

“All these things I’ve talked about 
is in the Bible somewhere. That book 
has got all the rules in it necessary to 
make life successful. We can see it 
nearly everywhere we go. We can 
preach about the great men this coun¬ 
try has produced and every one of 
them banked on the Bible fer a guide. 
But we’re fergittin’ why they were 
successful and the youngsters have got 
eyes on another book they think is 
greater, and that is the bank book, 
and when we drive jt home that if 
they will follow the Bible they won’t 
lose out on the bank book end, fer it 
will naturally follow. I ain’t sayin’ 
that every one who follows the Bible 
is goin’ to be millionaires, but money 
can’t buy happiness that will last 
throughout eternity and the Bible will. 
So if we study it more, and don’t be 
afraid of it fer it ain’t poison, and 
git full of its teachin’s and above all 
follow them, then we can leave be; 
hind us a record tnat will show we 
have not lived in vain. 

“Say, ain’t your book filled with 
marks now that shows us the red 
lights of danger in life, fer they tell 
us why there are so many failures and 
shipwrecks on the ocean of life?” 



128 FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


THE LIGHT HOUSES OF LIFE 


Esau’s Mess of Pottage Was a Regular Feast Compared to 
What We Sold Our Birthright Fer 


“I’ve told you about the red lights 
of life, which shows us how to dodge 
trouble,” said Farmer John to me, “but 
I never told you about the light houses 
that we got, which shows us where the 
hidden rocks and shoals of life are, 
but we don’t see so many of them as 
we do the red lights, bein’ somethin’ 
like a lot of savages, who are tickled to 
death when they git hold of somethin’ 
that’s colored, just like the Indians 
w T ho sold nearly all the State of Penn¬ 
sylvania fer a couple of quarts of glass 
colored beads and thought they wuz 
gittin’ the best of the bargain, because 
they never saw that kind of beads be¬ 
fore and they thought they wuz regu¬ 
lar dandies when they wuz decorated 
with them. Of course we all laugh 
when we read about them, but when 
we dangle with the red lights of life 
and after it’s all over and we’ve paid 
the bill fer jugglin’ with them and 
folks begin to talk about us and give 
us the horse laugh fer we wuz stuck 
worse than the Indians. They didn’t 
know any better and we have got 
these light houses right in front of 
us, so we can’t sell our birthright fer 
a mess of pottage, like Esau, which 
wuz a regular feast compared to what 

we sold ours fer. 

* * * 

“I wuz readin’ in the papers the oth¬ 
er day that we had nearly 50,000,000 
church members of all kinds that be¬ 
lieve in the Bible, at least they say so, 
but of course not havin’ a personal 
talk with all of them I can’t tell how 
they stand, but if this is true, each 
one of them ought to be a light house 
with their beams showin’ out in all 
directions, showin’ how to keep in 
the channels of life and dodge ship¬ 
wrecks, but I’m a thinkin’ that a big 
bunch of them has let their light go 
out, so that other folks can’t see what 


they’re doin’ on the side or else some¬ 
body has sneaked up into their tower 
and put a red light up where the white 
one should be and then that light is 
worse than any other kind, fer it sticks 
way up in the air and attracts all kinds 
of attention. 

* * * 

“Now when folks work hard, git a 
good reputation, then begin to act 
funny, doin’ things that won’t stand 
the search light of God Almighty, then 
their light is beginnin’ to grow dim, 
and pretty soon you will see the red 
light a flashin’. Then folks will begin 
to talk and gabble, jeer at the church, 
laugh at us folks that’s tryin’ to do 
good and help the younger folks along 
in life. Then we got a harder time 
than ever, fer we got to watch our 
light mighty close to see that our 
lamps are shinin’ bright and don’t go 
out or switch onto the red, fer our 
light houses are built mighty queer, 
they all have a switch in them and a 
couple of turns of that switch will 
eigther put out our lamp or turn on 
the red one. . 

* * * 

“I know of a man once, who we will 
call Marks, who fer years belonged to 
church, wuz superintendent of the 
Sunday school and had a good payin’ 
job, with a fine wife and children, but 
gittin’ the idee that he wuzn’t goin’ 
fast enough in accumulatin’ money, he 
started to buy stocks, usin’ other 
folks’ money. He wuz successful fer 
a time and the young men hearm* 
about it went to him fer advice, so 
got them to put money in his deals, 
which they did, havin’ great confi¬ 
dence in him. But all at once he 
bought the wrong stuff and the first 
thing he knowed he lost all his own 
money and that of every one else and 
when the kick started he wuz inves- 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


129 


tigated, put out of the church, ar¬ 

rested and sent to jail. But the fel¬ 
ler that kept the office that sold all 
this stock and who told him it wuz a 
“sure thing,” belonged to the same 
church and had talked Marks into 

goin’ wrong. 

* * * 

“Now who wuz responsible fer this 

light house bein’ put out? It won’t 
take long fer you to make up your 
mind, that stock broker still goes to 
the church and while he’s there puts 
in his time waitin’ fer victims. So 
the only way we can size it up it that 
anybody who uses the church to do 
business in it’s time to look at his 
light, fer even if we have these fifty 
million church members, as I said, 
there’s a bunch of them monkeyin’ 
with the switch of their light house 
and this case is only one of them, but 
it affected many others, who bein’ de¬ 
ceived by this one stock broker, broke 
up homes and destroyed reputations 
and made the church and everybody 
connected with it a laughin’ stock fer 
everybody who even heard about it. 

* * * 

“But we got good light houses and 
there is -lots of them in churches, in 
spite of the bad keepers I told you 
about. Fellers that want your money, 
jolly you along, ain’t keepin’ their 
light right, they don’t tell you how 
to live, but instead are tellin’ you 
how smart you are and they are, mak- 
in’ you a millionaire in ten minutes 
and if you’d only think a little that you 
ain’t born to be millionaireSi but to 
act right and do good, and while you’re 
a doin’ it if the good Lord makes you 
a millionaire, which is done some¬ 
times but not often, about one case 
out of a million, then you are on the 
right tracks. 

“This world is full of gray-haired 
men and women, and every one of 
them are light houses. I’ll admit some 
of them has the red light displayed 
but most of them will tell you what 
to avoid if you’ll only listen and take 
advice. To prove this just try it out, 
fer they will tell you about the bumps 
they got and as experience is the best 
teacher the lessons you git will save 
you lots of time and trouble. So just 


look out fer these light houses, fer 
if we look out fer the white lights in¬ 
stead of the red ones and just git 
color blind, you’ll be ahead of the 
game, fer you can git some good in¬ 
formation from all these lights if you 
want to do it, but be sure that it 
comes from those whose hair is white 

and frosted with age. 

* * * 

“There’s nothin’ like takin’ an old 
traveller into your confidence when 
you are startin’ out on life’s journey, 
they know the tricks and what you’re 
goin’ to bump up against, fer as you 
view the vast ocean of life you fergit 
the millions of folks that have went 
over that very same trip and you 
think you’re goin’ to dodge everythin’ 
that comes along and you can’t see 
failure and if you do you got to have 
an eye like an eagle, yes, two eagles, 
to sail over them, which we know you 
ain’t got any more than we have, so 
it pays to git started right. So we 
just organize a ‘horse sense class,’ 
which ought to be in every church and 
school house in the land, with us old 
gray headed fellers listenin’ to your 
stories and what your up against and 
then give our experiences and how 
we made out, you’d hear somethin’ 
that you can’t git out of any novel 
and the result would be that we’d have 
more light houses goin’ with the right 
kind of lights than ever before. 

* * * 

“Fifty million church members. Just 
think, if they wuz all goin’ right we 
couldn’t see the red lights fer the 
white ones, fer you never saw a light 
house with its white light shinin’ out 
that wuzn’t stickhT away up in the 
air, because they ain’t got nothin’ to 
hide, and want everybody to see it. 
If 50,000,000 folks wuz all actin’ right, 
a steerin’ our young folks across this 
great ocean, it wouldn’t be very long 
before every person who hung out a. 
red light would be a curiosity and 
they’d be switchin’ them off mighty 
quick and then the lawyers would be 
lookin’ fer other jobs as well as about 
half of our judges. We wouldn’t have 
to spend millions fer jails to lock folks 
up, when they should be workin’ fer 
the common good. 


13® 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


“I wuz a readin’ in the Bible and 
I struck this verse: ‘If I be lifted up, 

I will draw all men unto me.’ It wuz 
the good Lord that said that, but I’m 
thinkin’ that we are tryin’ to lift up 
ourselves and we ain’t gittin' any¬ 
where except into a bunch of trouble. 
So in spite of all the churches we 
have, which can’t accommodate one- 
third of all the folks that live in this 
country and there is lots of room at 
that, we’re tryin’ to ‘histe’ ourselves 
up by our boot-straps; conseqeuntly 
we’re still where we started and we’re 
fergittin’ about liftin’ up the good 
Lord, so we can git together in one 
solid mass, but we can’t if Bil! Jones, 
Sam Smith, you and me and every¬ 
body else is a tuggin’ on our old boots 
to pull ourselves above every one else. 

Where does the good Lord come in? 

* * * 

“And then when we’re pullin’ the 
straps bust or the soles of our boots 
pull off, which leaves us all a standin’ 
in the mud, before we started to yank, 
so we ain’t gittin’ no where and the 
only thing we’re drawin’ is a lot of 
sweat and trouble. But I told you what 
the good Lord says about it, we got 
to lift Him up and when we do we’ll 
al4 be gittin’ together, workin’ together 
and helpin’ everybody else. Then look 
at what a rattlin’ fine world we’d be 
livin’ in, but we ain’t, so we got the 
conditions that makes us fight and 
worry and makes this life one big bat¬ 
tle from the cradle to the grave. 

* * * 

“Now the good Lord made this world 
and everything in it and on it and He 
understands the machinery and what 
He wants to git at, and in His good¬ 
ness He gave you and me some stuff 
that we call brains, and of course we 
start to use them and not bein’ on 
hand at the beginnin’ of all things, we 
git the idee that our gray matter is 
‘just the cheese,’ and we struck it 
right. It’s nothin’ but ‘cheese’ and 
mighty soft at that, when we consider 
the way we’re usin’ them, and as 
cheese is made out of skimmed milk, 
with all the cream takin’ out, we’re 
puttin' this product (usin’ our own 
words) up against the master mind 
of this universe, thinkin’ we’re goin’ 


to improve conditions and when w« 
consider that the human family has 
been at it fer over 5,000 years, ani 
we got what we have today, I think 
it’s just about time fer us to pray t» 
the good Lord to shoot some cream 
into our craniums, so that we can re¬ 
duce our self esteem, stop pullin’ on 
our boot straps and raise up the good 
Lord.’ 

* * * 

“The way we’re actin’ in this ease 
is just like Zeke Parker. He got a 
watch given to him and it wuz work- 
in’ first rate, but he gits hold of it 
and takes it apart and then puts it 
together again. He had three wheels 
left over, as he didn’t know where 
they went, so he bragged about how 
he’d improved on the watch, after 
watchin’ it run fer five minutes. Pretty 
soon the watch begun act queer and 
lose time, then it would jump and git 
ahead, and figurin’ on that watch it 
lost about ten years’ time in one year. 
Of course a stranger, if he didn’t know 
the story, would think it wuz alright 
at times, but it wuzn’t. It’s the same 
case with us, we’ve been foolin’ with 
the works of our watch and we’ve lost 
centuries of time. We think it is all 
right, but the good Lord has kept ac¬ 
count of it and He knows what we 
done, we can’t improve on His works. 

* * * 

“Now if He tells us to lift Him up 
and will draw all men unto Him, then 
we got the biggest, best and brightest 
light house with a light that never 
goes out, to guide us, but like Zeke 
Parker, we’re fooling with the ma¬ 
chinery and tryin’ to improve things, 
so that each one of us will be a bright 
and shinin’ light, so we can git hold 
of other folks to make them come our 
way. And we’ve made an awful botch 
of it, fer while we all should be light 
houses on this great ocean of life, 
show the channel to the greatest light 
house that shines through all eternity, 
we got to lift up the good Lord so 
that all men can be drawn to Him, fer 
there never wuz a successful life of 
any mortal man, that wuzn’t attracted 
by this wonderful light house that 
guides us through life and shines dur- 
in’ the never endin’ ages of eternity. 


PARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


131 


“We can’t see the good Lord. He 
paid that great debt fer us before we 
come to this earth, but He left us a 
guide, a history, a book of rules how 
to live and how to die and what He 
"will do fer us, both in this world and 
the great next one to come and that’s 
the Bible. I know' that most of these 
50,000,000 folks that belong to church 
can read, each one knows what they 
promised to do, but from the looks 
of things there’s a huge crowd of them 
that’s givin’ it the go by, thinkin’ it’s 
more respectable to belong to some 
church than it is to stay out. Now 
it ain’t my place to judge folks, fer 
the good Lord will attend to that, but 
I'm a thinkin’ that they’ll have less ex¬ 
cuses to make if they git on the job 
.and keep their light houses goin’ full 

blast, as they said they would. 

^ ^ 

“There ain’t no use thinkin’ that we 
:are our own boss and can do as we 
please, we can’t. So all these young 
folks that’s growin’ up are watchin’ 
our light. It’s their guide. Many of 
them don’t understand the Bible, 
that’s why we make them go to Sun¬ 
day school, and most of them by them¬ 
selves. We’re tryin’ to make these 
bids git ready fer Heaven while a 
good many parents are lollin’ around 
in their pajamas and won’t take the 
trouble to go with them. So these 
.youngsters think that if the old folks 
can take a chance of slippin’ into life 
-everlastin’, they’ll do the same thing 
and if one verse in the Bible is shot 
al them about once or twice a month 
will keep their light houses goin’, we 
-can’t blame them fer follerin’ the ex¬ 
ample set. 

* * * 

“So it’s up to us, the middle aged 
and older folks to git busy and keep 
our light houses goin’. Our daily pa¬ 
pers show how the red lights are git- 
tin’ in their work. We condemn and 
boiler at some of the things that’s 
goin’ on and yet when the siftin’ time 
comes I often wonder how much of it 
will be our own fault, simply because 
we didn’t keep our light house goin’. 

1 can’t answer that question, each 


must do it himself, fer in spite of all 
the trouble we have, the salvation and 
savin’ of the world depends on those 
who keep their lamps trimmed and 
burriin’ so that it shall be a guide on 
the ocean of life and lift up the good 
Lord, so that all men can be drawn to 
Him, to enjoy a successful life on this 
earth and life through the endless 
ages of eternity.” 


IN FLANDERS’ FIELDS 

By Lieut. Colonel John McCrae 

Canadian Forces 

In Flanders’ fields, the poppies blow 
Between the crosses, row on row. 
That marks oui place; and in the sky 
The larks, still bravely singing fly. 
Scarce heard amid the guns below. 
We are the dead. Short days ago 
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. 
Loved and were loved, and now we 
lie 

In Flanders' fields. 

Take up the quarrel with the foe! 

To you, with failing hands, we throw 
The torch. Be yours to lift it high! 

If ye break faith with us who die 
We shall not sleep, though poppies 
blow 

In Flanders’ fields. 


“HUMANITY’S PLEA” 

Reply to “In Flanders' Fields 
By John C. Ellis 

Director Americanization, New London, Conn. 

We view the crosses, row on row. 

In Flanders’ fields, where poppies 
blow 

Behold! The cross on Calvary, 

The sacrifice, to make us free. 

The Christ, who died, whom all should 
know, 

With peace and joy can make Earth 
glow. 

Neglected sacrifice! And so 
They fell, for right and liberty 
In Flanders’ fields. 

With cress and Christ, defeat the foe! 
Bring love and joy, not pain and 
woe. 

Let countless hosts, then raise on 
high 

The cross, so peace shall never die. 
Remember Christ, as poppies blow 
In Flanders’ fields. 




132 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


QUESTION OF INSURANCE 


The Greatest Insurance Company in This World Gives 
Policies to All Who Will Take Them, Free 


I stopped in at a meeting of an or¬ 
ganization which I wished to attend 
the other evening and much to my sur¬ 
prise I found Farmer John was ad¬ 
dressing the audience, holding them 
in rapt attention by his quaint opin¬ 
ions and the original way he had of 
reasoning the subject of “Insurance,” 
which was the topic of the evening. 
It so impressed me that I could not 
forget it and I give this resume of it, 
as best I can. 

“There wuz a feller called at my 
house the other day,” said the Farmer, 
“that wanted me to get insured. He 
talked like a streak of lightnin’, fell¬ 
in’ me he had the best insurance pol¬ 
icy in the world and every other com¬ 
pany wuz simply ‘pikers’ when it come 
to compare them with his. Why it 
wuz so solid that even the good Lord 
couldn’t bust it up, fer they had so 
much money they wuz ashamed to 
look a dollar bill in the face and he 
didn’t want my money, he only wanted 
to insure me, so that this great big 
fatherly thing he worked fer could let 
my family spend some of those mil¬ 
lions they saved, if I got put out of 
business by an excess of germs or got 
ran over with an automobile and the 
undertaker had to be called in. 

* * 

“Of course wantin’ to be polite, I 
couldn’t say a word until he got out 
of breadth, and havin’ good lung power 
I had to wait considerable time un¬ 
til he begun to gasp and puff fer more 
wind. So when he started to slow up, 
just like an engine short of steam, 
I took the floor and asked him a few 
questions about it. I wanted to know 
if he worked fer nothin’, because he 
hadn’t said a word about money, fer 
he had pictured my wife and children 


starvin’ to death, with no shoes nor 
clothes, with the winds blowin’ and 
snow flyin’, no roof on the house, the- 
unfeelin’ landlord pitchin’ them out on 
the street and me buried in the ceme¬ 
tery, where even the grass wouldn’t 
grow on my grave, with my pet dog a 
howlin’ in sorrow until I begun to 
think I wuz a regular scoundrel. 

* * * 

“He wuz so eloquent that the tears 
had started to pour down his cheeks 
and sob as if his heart wuz breakin’. 
So after he got composed he told me 
that he got a small rake off fer every 
feller he insured, so as to keep the 
wolf, which he claimed wuz prowlin’ 
around my door, away from his and if 
I would only pay 15 cents a week and 
git insured instead of leavin’ a sorrow¬ 
ful family they would be rejoicin’, be¬ 
cause they could split up $150.00 and 
be glad—no he didn’t say because I 
wuz dead, but he come close to it. I 
told him when he said that it put me 
in mind of a lodge I belonged to once. 
They had 15 cents a week dues to pay 
to belong to it and besides this we had 
to swear on the Bible that we’d per¬ 
fect our dear brothers in adversity 
who wuz in it if we all had to go to 
the poor house. But one day ‘Ham’ 
Zeigler got taken down with the 
asthma, which wuz regular with him 
fer he wuz nearly always sick. He 
couldn’t walk three blocks without 
whistlin’ and hissin’ like a leaky steam 
pipe and wuz reported sick. Some of 
the dear brothers started to kick and 
claimed ‘Ham’ took more money out 
of the treasury than he ever put in 
and the secretary said he owed 15 
cents back dues. Then ‘Ham’ wuz 
pitched out, all because of 15 cents. 
So I wanted to know if his insurance 
company wuz like that. The agent 




FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


133 


got a little huffy at that and told me 
his company wuzn’t any charity af¬ 
fair and if I wuz back that 15 cents 
there wouldn’t be such a jubilee 
around my shack when I had departed 
and then my folks might be sorry I 
had died—owin’ that 15 cents, he add¬ 
ed after a pause. 

* * * 

“Then I told that insurance feller 
I wuz glad he wuz in the business, fer 
no doubt it done lots of folks good and 
I had some myself, but every one of 
those insurance companies had a 
string tied to their policies and if 
there wuz a slip up they would give 
the string a yank and back would 
come the policy and if they took it 
the folks would git nothin’, so if we 
didn’t watch them close we would git 
the April fool joke played on us, like 
we done when we wuz kids, tie a 
string to a package, wait until some 
one tried to pick it up and then we’d 
pull the string. Then I asked him 
what he thought of an insurance com¬ 
pany that gave out free policies, didn’t 
charge any fee, had no doctor’s exami¬ 
nations, guaranteed to take care of the 
insured in sickness and in health and 
would double and triple the length ol 
their lives that they had on this earth, 
take care of their children for three 
generations, would take charge of 
their enemies, so they could be pro¬ 
tected, would tell them how to protect 
their treasures so no thief could steal 
them, and lots of other things, and all 
the folks had to do wuz to simply take 
th policy, which wuz good as long as 
they wanted it to be and no questions 
asked. 

* * * 

“Now, folks, that description of that 
policy I told him about made his eyes 
bulge. He asked me if this company 
paid its agents, fer if they did he 
wanted a job right away, fer he knew 
that he could git hundreds of folks 
to take out that kind of a policy, as 
he had no collections to make and 
would git his pay, sure. Why he got 
enthusiastic over it and wanted to 
know who the general manager wuz, 
so he could write to him and git on 
the sellin’ staff. Then I told him this 
particular insurance company had 


thousands of agents out all over the 
world and he ought to have bumped 
agin some of them, fer I didn’t know 
how he could git by them, particularly 
when they had so many offices around 
in every town and village, with their 
literature scattered everywhere. 

* * * 

“Then he did git excited and he off¬ 
ered me half his salary fer a month if 
I helped him git a job with it and 
wanted to know if I knew the general 
manager. I told him I never saw the 
general manager but I’d often talked 
with him. Then this enthusiastic 
young feller all filled up to the neck 
about this company, said I must a 
phoned him and wanted the telephone 
number so he could ’phone and put 
in his application fer a job or would¬ 
n’t I please give the address so he 
could write and give his references, 
but I told him there wuz no use writ- 
in’, as no written applications wuz 
recognized, fer this company didn’t 
use postage stamps to answer letters 
and every application fer policies or 
an agency had to be made personally 
and a particular thing about this com¬ 
pany wuz there no way to fool the gen¬ 
eral manager. You couldn’t claim you 
got a lot of policies fer this company 
and those who accepted the policies 
couldn’t say they kept the terms of 
them without the general manager 
knowin’ it, neither could anybody play 
any sly tricks and think they wuz 
goin’ to git away with them, fer if they 
even tried it that cancelled the whole 
thing. 

* * * 

“Why folks the more I talked about 
this wonderful insurance company the 
wilder that feller got and he begged 
and begged fer me to tell that gen¬ 
eral manager as soon as possible that 
he wanted a job with him. Then I 
suggested that he had better read the 
policy first, after which if he agreed 
to it and would comply with the con¬ 
ditions, we would take the matter up 
with the headquarters and try and fix 
things up. So I invited him into the 
house, got him a chair, got out my 
Bible and told him the greatest insur¬ 
ance policy the world ever saw or 
heard of wuz found in that book and 


134 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


in no other and if he didn’t know any¬ 
thing about it I wuz willing to show 
him all about it. 

* * * 

“Now folks, I guess you wuz some¬ 
thing like that agent, fer I don’t think 
you ever took that good old book and 
compared it to an insurance policy. 
But it is there all right, fer don’t it 
say you can git these wonderful things 
without money and without price? 
Don’t it tell you that you can have 
eternal life if you live up to the con¬ 
ditions, and that’s more than double 
and triple the length of time you live 
on this earth? Don’t it tell you that 
those who follow the instructions of 
livin’ that you’ll be taken care of and 
your children too, fer it says that the 
children- of- these- policyholders- has 
never been seen beggin’ bread, nor 
even forsaken, fer if we’d investigate 
the cases of these beggars and pan 
handlers we see each day their par¬ 
ents never had one of these policies. 
If you don’t believe it, just nose 
around and see if I’m right, or old 
King David made a false statement, 
fer he said it. 

* * * 

•‘Don’t it tell you where to keep 
your treasures, where thieves can’t 
break in and steal, fer there never 
wuz anybody yet that picked the lock 
of that safe and got away with it, 
fer you and God Almighty are the 
only ones that’s got the combination. 
The general manager of this great in¬ 
surance company is the good Lord 
Himself and if anybody wants to be 
an agent, that’s sure to draw his sal¬ 
ary when the great pay day comes, all 
he has to do is to git in line, agree to 
the conditions and go at it. Why look 
at the churches we have all over this 
country. Every one of them are after 
folks to git insured. Look at the big 
bunch of preachers and teachers all 
asking you to take out your policy. 
And you don’t have to go to no doc¬ 
tor to git examined, fer the general 
manager knows all about your case 
and when you think you need help all 
you got to do is to ask it and you’ll 
git it, providin’ the general manager 
thinks you should have it. 


“What other insurance company 
promises you all this? Why I can’t 
begin to tell you all that you’re goin’ 
to git if you just stick to that policy 
and don’t break the rules, which is 
only two, both of them startin’ with 
the word ‘Love,’ and you all know 
what they are just as much as I do. 
When you want to git more details, 
just read tne other ten rules and you 
know what’s what. Now it ain’t my 
place to judge folks, but I can't help 
seein’ there’s a bunch of folks tryin’ 
to git the benefits of this policy by 
playin’ the double game, doin’ little 
sneaky things that they know ain’t 
right. So my advice is to take care of 
your policy and see it don’t lapse, fer 
that will do it sure. 

* * * 

“Then there are some more folks 
that put off takin’ out this policy be¬ 
cause they want to dodge it. They 
think they can git it any time, but 
some of them git left, fer old Father 
Time comes along and picks them up, 
not givin’ them a moment to take one 
out. Then it’s too late. Now folks, 
I guess you know as well as I do what 
this policy is, fer if you don’t, suppose 
you take your Bible and read it your¬ 
self then try it out. You will see that 
it will keep you out of all kinds of 
trouble, it will make you feel as if 
you wuz somebody, fer you can be 
proud of the fact that you carry in¬ 
surance that can be collected, part in 
this world but the biggest part in 
the world to come, fer it’s always in 
force. , 

* * * 

“We all want to see the young folks 
succeed in this world, we want to warn 
them of the dangers and how to keep 
them from temptations that will de¬ 
stroy their future. If you folks who 
have children would only take out a 
policy you are startin’ them on the 
right road, fer you got them insured 
and then they will take out their own, 
when they see how good it is. No 
money can buy it, if it could us chaps 
that ain’t got much of this world’s 
goods won’t have any show at all. So 
it’s so arranged that we got as good a 
chance as the richest folks in all the 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


135 


world and probably better, fer we ain’t 
hindered by the money question, which 
keeps many folks from gittin’ out a 
policy. 

* * * 

“I can talk all day about this in¬ 
surance and can’t find none to beat it. 
Some policies expire at the end of 
ten, fifteen or twenty years, but this 
runs on forever; others expire at 
death, but this one gits better and 
more strong when that time comes. 
The policy I’m talkin’ about insures 
you all through your mortal life and 
extends all through eternity. This 
great insurance company pays divi¬ 
dends just as soon as you take out 
your policy. No other does that. You 
don’t have to worry about payin’ your 
premium, fer it’s already been paid. 


This insurance company can’t bust up, 
fer the great manager owns all the 
wealth of the universe and money 
can’t buy it and it’s yours fer the ask¬ 
in’. All you have to do is take it, 
then obey the rules. It won’t be 
forced on you but if you want it just 
put in your personal application and 
all the joys of a well-spent life will 
be yours and an absolute gaurantee 
of another life of never ending joy 
and happiness, as the endless ages of 
eternity roll on fer: 

“ ‘When you’ve been there, ten thou¬ 
sand years, 

“ ‘Amid that wondrous throng, 

“ ‘You’ve no less days to sing God’s 
praise 

“ ‘Than when you first begun.’ ” 





136 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


PRIDE ! 


There Ain’t Any More to Brag About Bein’ a Descendent 
From Some Kings Than Advertisin’ Your 
Ancestor Wuz a Pirate 


“Pride goeth before destrustion and 
a haughty spirit before a fall,” said 
Farmer John to me one day, after he 
had greeted me in my office. “I seen 
somethin’ today on the street that 
made me say this, which brought it to 
my mind. I saw a young feller just 
blades, a white vest that let his shirt 
that had creases as sharp as knife 
blades, a white ves tthat let his shirt 
bosom stick out about six inches past 
his chin, a swaller tailed coat that wuz 
longer than most women’s dresses, a 
stove pipe hat that wuz as smooth and 
shiny as the back of our house cat 
after it got through lickin’ itself, and 
his shoes, they wuz so pointed that I 
wondered if he had a toe stickin’ out 
as long as my middle finger and he 
had to have them built that way, so 
he wouldn’t have to double it up like 
we do our fists and I guess he couldn’t 
find a collar, as he had a cuff actin’ 
fer it. 

* * * 

“Why it made him hold up his head 
like a wooden Indian, fer he wuz liable 
to cut his throat if he tried to look 
at his feet. He just come trippin’ 
along, takin’ short little steps, swing¬ 
in’ his skinny lookin’ cane and smokin’ 
a cigarette. All he lacked to complete 
his make-up wuz a little poodle dog 
tied to a string. Gosh, wuzn’t he satis¬ 
fied with himself, fer he never smiled 
or turned his head, never noticin’ that 
the street wuz gittin’ mended and wet 
cement and concrete wuz bein’ 
dumped all over it, with wagons 
and horses drivin’ through it. Soon 
one come along and the wheels 
struck a board layin’ in this slushy 


stuff, and WHISH! It squirted out in 
all directions and in about one sec¬ 
ond that beautiful object of art wuz 
covered from head to foot with wet 
cement, concrete, mud and dirt. 

* * * 

“Good gracious didn’t he holler. He 
wuz so mad he stuttered, and he 
cursed and swore like a trooper. The 
men workin’ in the sreet tried to clean 
him off by wipin’ his clothes with 
empty cement bags, which made him 
look worse. Then he got madder and 
started to pound them with his cane. 
Then they went up in the air and they 
picked him up and pitched him head 
first right into a big batch of it in 
the street and he landed flat. I yuz so 
sorry fer him that I went out to help 
him. Then he commenced on me and 
called me a “hay seed” and to keep 
away from him, fer which I wuz 
mighty glad as I didn’t want to git 
smeared with that stuff. Then the 
dandy vowed he wuz goin’ to git every¬ 
body arrested, fer his “old man” wuz 
a millionaire and he wuz goin’ to see 
whether common folks could daub him 
up like that and git away with it. 
Then the big crowd that gathered 
around begun to laugh and jeer at him 
and pitched more mud on him. When 
he saw that cornin’ he took to his 
heels, not even stoopin’ to pick up his 
plug hat. So one of the drivers took 
it, wiped it off and put it on his head, 
while the gang cheered. 

* * * 

“Now I couldn’t help thinkin’ what 
pride will do, and then what a little 
thing it takes to bring us down to 
the proper level. Here wuz this 
“dude,” just because he had better 
clothes than the folks hustlin’ fer a 







FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


m 


livin’, all puffed up, then along comes 
a squirt of cement and quicker than 
the flickerin’ of an eyelash his ‘pride 
continueth not,’ fer he looked at the 
stars and fell into the mud. He soon 
found out that nobody sympathizes 
with the sorrows of the proud, par¬ 
ticularly if they’re hung onto a suit 
of clothes on dress parade and worn 
by a son of some millionaire who brags 
about it, fer everybody knows he had 
nothin’ to do with his father havin’ 
seven figures in his bank account. 

* * * 

“In think’ this matter of pride over, 
I can’t see what we’ve done to be 
proud about; yet we’re full of it from 
the highest official to the lowest class 
of humanity. You may think I’m 
wrong about this, but just size it up. 
We all had to come into this world 
the same way, and I never saw any 
baby in swaddlin’ clothes puffed up 
with pride; we didn’t know anything, 
and it’s nothin’ but our surroundin’s 
that pumps the pride into us. Now 
that mud-covered son of a millionaire 
didn’t pick his parents any more than 
we did, consequently he ain’t got any 
reason to brag about it and think he’s 
better than someone else, fer to my 
mind he ought to thank the good Lord 
that he has rich parents and try and 
help those that ain’t. So that’s where 
this pride comes in, at least that is 
what this kind of folks call pride when 
it ain’t nothin’ more than downright 
selfishness, thinkin’ they’ve better 
than someone else. Measurin’ them 
from the heart standpoint thy ain’t 
half as good. 

* * * 

“As a rule you will find that men 
who worked hard and achieved great¬ 
ness ain’t proud. They can’t afford 
to be, but their off-spring is generally 
the opposite, just as if they had any¬ 
thing to do with it. Why takin’ our 
ancestors, we all have ancestors, there 
ain’t a human bein’ on the face of the 
earth that ain’t got ancestors. Now 
if some of my ancient relatives wuz 
executed fer murder it ain’t my fault, 
any more than if my ancestor wuz a 
king. I can’t help that, fer to tell 


the truth there ain’t any more to brag 
about bein’ a relative of some kings 
than there is advertisin’ that we des¬ 
cended from a pirate. Why I’ve often 
thought if we could hang up the rec¬ 
ords of our ancestors like toys on a 
Christmas tree or put them in a mus¬ 
eum, so everybody could read them, 
we wouldn’t be struttin’ around like 
peacocks, braggin’ about our ancestral 
tree, fer it’s a mighty good thing fer 
us that most of the deeds they done is 
buried in the grave. Accordin’ to the 
Bible we all sprouted from Adam, so 
we must all be related to each other 
and your ancestor must be mine and 
mine yours. I’ve heard a lot about 
blue blood, but I’ll be swiped if I ever 
saw any kind of blood in human bein’s 
except red blood, and I never saw any¬ 
body else that did either. 

* * * 

“I wuz in a large city once and I 
saw a place labelled ‘Hobo’s Club,’ so 
I went in. Bein’ met by a seedy lookin’ 
individual, he told me he wuz the pres¬ 
ident. Of course I got talkin’ with 
him, while the brother Hobos eyed me 
from the wooden benches around the 
room. The chief Hobo told me how he 
wuz workin’ fer the good of all the 
folks in the world and how his heart 
wuz bleedin’ fer starvin’ and home¬ 
less, fer there wuz a million men that 
couldn’t git work on account of the 
graspin’ capitalists, who carried every¬ 
thing in their vest pockets. So I told 
him I had a farm that wuz tied to 
this earth pretty tight and from last 
accounts wuz still there, and if he had 
any starvin’ members in the room I’d 
give them a job. He called on two of 
them, that looked about as seedy as 
he did, and when I told them the work 
wuz on my farm and they needn’t 
starve durin’ the long winter, that set¬ 
tled it, fer they claimed they could 
do more good fer humanity loafin’ in¬ 
stead of workin’ and I wuz a graspin’ 
capitalist if I expected them to work. 

X X * 

“When they went back to their seats 
and I got a rear view of them, I didn’t 

blame them fer not wantin’ to go out 
among the multitudes. Their pants 








138 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


looked good enough from the feet to 
the end of their legs, but after that 
they needed mendin’ real bad. I told 
the president that he’d better keep 
those fellers inside or the police might 
git hold of them, and a few nails would 
hold down the benches better than 
those husky men, and if the sufferin’ 
millions wuz dependin’ on them fer 
assistance there wuz goin’ to be a 
bunch of dead folks before long if they 
didn’t git out and hustle. Why the 
president got insulted right away and 
he told me bein’ a Hobo wuz an art 
and took years to learn the business; 
nobody knew this country better than 
they did, all about trains, box cars, 
the easy conductors and how to git 
free rides, what towns to dodge and 
how the police wouldn’t treat them 
right, and this country wuz no good, 
fer they wouldn’t pass any laws to pro¬ 
tect the down trodden hobo, who had 
just as much right to travel over this 
country as millionaires, even if they 
didn’t have any money, and enjoyed 
travellin’ on the roads, just as much 
as the rich did on the plush, and if 
the people would listen to them they 
could teach economy and thrift and 
how to git along on very little money. 

“The more I talked to that president 
the more proud I seen he wuz, fer he 
believed that they wuz a select class 
all by themselves, and they had as 
much pride in their organization as 
any high-toned club. So when I wuz 
leavin’ he asked me fer some money 
to help the poor distressed folks of 
the world, but considerin’ the mat¬ 
ter I gave them a lot of cabbages, that 
would help more than money, fer the 
condition of their breeches wouldn’t 
allow them to go out and spend it. 

“When I read in the papers about 
these gun men and gangsters, and how 
they fight and shoot to hold their 
jobs as the chief, this shows they have 
pride, fer if they didn’t they wouldn’t 
scrap to be boss of the organization. 
But there is no use of goin’ into all 
this, you know about it as well as I 
do, fer it’s nothin’ but selfish pride 
that means disaster to everyone that 
practices it, fer it can’t do any person 
any good and only works harm to 
them and the world at large. But we 


got to have pride, pride to do right, 
pride that we wuz born, so we can 
make an effort fer the life to come; 
pride in helpin’ the unfortunate, to 
help them git along. I don’t mean 
the fellers that won’t work and are 
lazy and don’t do anything but mean 
tricks and beg fer handouts, fer re¬ 
member we can have a just esteem of 
ourselves without bein’ proud. 

* * * 

“I wuz readin’ in a book once that 
told me many things about pride, say- 
in’: A proud man is always wilful. 
Pride increases our enemies and puts 
our friends to flight. Pride is the 
never failin’ vice of fools. Pride goes 
hated, cursed and abominated by all. 

It is pride not nature that craves 
much. Pride is as loud a beggar as 
want and a great deal more saucy. 
Pride sleeps in a gilded crown, con¬ 
tentment in a cotton night cap. Pride 
holds its head up high and rarely 
picks up anything, whereas modesty, 
like a diver, gathers pearls by keepin* 
his head low. When a proud man 
hears others praised he thinks him¬ 
self injured and the noblest character 
and best mannered are stained by the 
addition of pride. 

“If we all study the Bible we will 
soon find out all about this pride busi¬ 
ness, learn how false it is and nothin’ 
to be gained by it. There is none of 
us so good we can lord it over the 
other feller; our life is too short fer 
that, and when it’s over what good is 
it to us. We can all read about Lin¬ 
coln, how he struggled and worked 
and reached the highest pinacle of 
fame in this country and there wuz no 
pride about him. There wuz no pride 
about our good Lord, who left His 
wonderful home to die that we might 
live. And when we read about Luci¬ 
fer, who the Bible calls the “star of 
the mornin’,” you can soon find out 
what pride done fer him. This thing 
we call pride is a failin’ of humanity. 
We didn’t have it before we wuz born 
and it won’t do us the least bit of good 
after we have passed away from this 
life, fer 


FARMER JOHN’S OPINIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES 


Why should the spirit of mortal be 
proud ? 

Like a swift fleeting meteor or a fast 
flying cloud, 

A break of the lightning or a dash of 
the wave, 

Man passeth from life to his rest in 
the grave. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow 
may fade, 

Be scattered around and together be 
laid; 

And the young and the old, the low 
and the high, 

Shall moulder to dust, and together 
shall lie. 

The infant the mother attended and 
loved; 

The mother, that infant’s affection 
who proved. 

The husband, that mother, and infant 
who blessed— 

Each, all, are away to their dwelling 
of rest. 

The maid, on whose cheek, on whose 
brow, in whose eye, 

Shown beauty and pleasure—her tri¬ 
umphs are by; 

And the memory of those who loved 
her and praised, 

Are aiike from the minds of the living 
erased. 

The hand of the king, that the sceptre 
hath borne, 

The brow of the priest, that the mitre 
hath worn, 

The eye of the sage, and the heart of 
the brave, 

Are hidden and lost in the depth of 
the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow 
and to reap, 

The heardsman, who climbed with his 
goats up the steep. 

The beggar, who wandered in search 
of his bread, 

Have faded away like the grass that 
we tread. 

The saint, who enjoyed the com¬ 
munion of heaven, 

The sinner, who dared to remain un¬ 
forgiven, 

The wise and the foolish, the guilty 
and just. 

Have quietly mingled their bones with 
the dust. 


139 * 

So the multitude goes—like the flower 
or weed, 

That withers away to let others suc¬ 
ceed; 

So the multitude comes—even those 
we behold, 

To repeat every tale that has often 
been told. 

For we are the same that our fathers 
have been, 

We see the same sights our fathers 
have seen; 

We drink the same stream, we view 
the same sun, 

And we run the same course our fath¬ 
ers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our 
fathers would think; 

From the death we are shrinking, our 
fathers would shrink; 

To the life we are clinging, they also 
would cling— 

But it speeds from us all like the 
bird on the wing. 

They loved—but the story we can¬ 
not unfold; 

They scorned—but the heart of the 
haughty is cold; 

They grieved—but no wail from their 
slumber will come; 

They joyed—but the tongue of their 
gladness is dumb. 

They died—aye they died—and we 
things that are now, 

That walk on the turf that lies o’er 
their brow, 

And make in their dwellings a transi¬ 
ent abode, 

Meet the things that they met on 
their pilgrimage road. 

Yea; hope and despondency, pleasure- 
and pain, 

Are mingled together in sunshine and 
rain, 

And the smile and the tear, the song, 
and the dirge. 

Still follow each other, like surge 
upon surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye—’tis the 
draught of a breath;— 

From the blossom of health to the 
paleness of death, 

From the gilded saloon to the bier and 
the shroud;— 

Oh: why should the spirit of mortal 
be proud. 


—Wm. Knox. 



































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INDEX 


Page 

BEGINNIN’ OF THE BATTLE. 47 

Our young folks from college think life one big joke. 

BEIN’ A SPORT,. 116 

Nothin’ to it except trouble. 

CHARACTER AND REPUTATION. 58 

Folks hanker after reputation instead of character. 

DOES THE WORLD OWE US A LIVIN’?. 34 

Get Farmer John’s idea of it. 

FARMIN’ . 68 

Every feller sows his own seed and harvests his own crops. 

GAS . 72 

We’re an awful bunch of spoutin’ gas wells. 

GITT1N’ STARTED. 88 

Just open your own throttle, then go. 

GOOD MORNIN’ GOD. 80 

When we wake up after our night of life. 

HEADS VERSUS HANDS. 13 

Use your brains to win out, that’s what they’re fer. 

HUMAN GENERATORS. 76 

If our plant goes wrong, it’s our own fault. 

IF WE COULD BE YOUNG AGIN. 96 

No use regrettin’, make the present count. 

KISSIN’ . 31 

Ain’t supposed to be passed around like a free lunch. 

MAKIN’ OUR GOODS. 104 

Thousands of folks fer years have been workin’ on them. 

ME, MYSELF. 5- 

Size yourself up in a lookin’ glass. 

ONE BAD EGG. 51 

Just one bad egg done a lot of damage. 

OPPORTUNITIES . 9 

Buzzin’ around like bees, waitin’ to be grabbed. 

PAINTIN’ THE AIR. 17 

Don’t damn things that you don’t own nor made. 

PAYIN’ THE BILL. 120 

We are all busy payin’ bills, we can’t dodge them. 

PRIDE . 136 

Don’t hold your head too high, it might git bumped. 

4T 

RAT HOLES OF LIFE... 

We’re chewed full of holes, better cement them up. 























RIGHTS VERSUS BOOZE. 

Our rights ain’t in it with our responsibilities. 

ROBBIN’ THE CHILDREN. 

Stop stealin’ from them, they’ll act better. 

ROOF BUILDIN’. 

Git in your foundation before you tackle the roof. 

THE GOOD IN THE DEVIL.. 

Git sight of him, then scoot quick. 

"THE LIGHT HOUSES OF LIFE. 

Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage. 

THE QUESTION OF INSURANCE. 

No dues or doctors in this great company. 

THE RED LIGHTS OF LIFE. 

We got them everywhere. 

THE RUSH FER GOLD. 

Don’t set up the golden calf, let’s worship somethin’ better. 

THE VALUE OF A DAY. 

We got so few, we can’t afford to lose even one. 

THE WHIRLIN’ CIRCLES. 

There s a bunch of them. Which one are you in? 

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST COLLEGE. 

The graduates are about half educated. 

THIS LAND OF OURS. 

We’re proud of our country, but look how we’re actin’. 

WHAT ABOUT YOUR WAGES. 

Pay more attention to your last pay day, that’s what counts. 

WHO ARE OUR FRIENDS?. 

Friends worth havin’ ain’t pushin’ themselves on us. 

WHO’S YOUR BOSS?. 

We got them from the cradle to the grave. 


Pag* 

38 

29 

27 - 

55 

128 

132 

124 

112 

108 

65 

23 

61 

92 

100 

84 



























library of congress 



COPYRIGHTED 1924 
BY JOHN C. ELLIS 




















